2021-02-03

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Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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ADMINISTRATION

‘They are playing catch-up’: ‘U’ community talks new stay-in-place Recommendation follows 14 confirmed B.1.1.7 variant cases among University students CHRISTIAN JULIANO & JARED DOUGALL Daily Staff Reporters

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily Engineering students react to criminal sexual misconduct charges against Peter Chen, computer science and engineering professor at the University of Michigan.

Students react to sexual misconduct charges against Professor Peter Chen

Longtime EECS instructor was teaching two Winter 2021 classes before allegations arose SHANNON STOCKING Daily Staff Reporter

Peter Chen, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, was placed on administrative leave Wednesday following pending criminal charges for sexual conduct of the first degree with a victim under the age of 13. The offense is alleged to have occurred on April 1, 2017, and Chen is scheduled for a probable cause conference hearing on Feb. 4. There is no information at this time that links Chen’s charges to his career at the University, an email to CSE students from Alec Gallimore, dean of the College of Engineering, said. “Let me be clear — sexual misconduct is completely unacceptable in any form,” Gallimore wrote. “I encourage anyone who has any information about misconduct to report it. It is only when we are aware of issues that we can address them.” Gallimore also wrote in the

email he plans to work with CSE Chair Michael Wellman and the rest of the department to address its climate and culture. When asked how the CSE department will be handling this situation, University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily there was no further information to share. In an email to The Michigan Daily, Mariell Lehman, Chen’s lawyer, said Chen denies the charges against him. “On January 26, 2021 Mr. Chen was made aware of the criminal sexual conduct allegations that had been made against him,” Lehman wrote. “He completely denies the allegations and has cooperated fully with the Ann Arbor Police Department to assist them in their investigation. Mr. Chen is confident that the truth will prevail and that he will be exonerated fully. Mr. Chen thanks the numerous people who have reached out in support of him over the last few days.” In a statement to The Daily Wednesday evening, the Engineering Student Government

wrote their assembly would be meeting with Gallimore to discuss the situation further. “We hope to use this time to get a better understanding of the details surrounding this event,” the statement reads. “We patently abhor any and all sexual misconduct. Additionally, we will be publishing resources for students on our website promptly.” Engineering sophomore Zaynab Elkolaly, an assembly representative in Central Student Government and Engineering Student Government, attended a pre-scheduled meeting with Gallimore on Thursday evening. She said Gallimore encouraged those at the meeting to not jump to conclusions before Chen has been proven guilty and expressed concern for the wellbeing of students. “I could also tell that he was personally very enraged and worried for us,” Elkolaly said. “It just seems like he’s a guy that cares, but his hands are tied right now.” University alum Siddhant Pagariya was enrolled in EECS 482

CITY

during his time at the University. He said he believes that students deserve more than just a follow up email on the issue because misconduct is a continuing issue in the computer science department. “I guess for students’ peace of mind, they should allow for a lot more of a conversation, and listening to both sides would be much better than just, ‘Hey, here’s an email,’” Pagariya said. “They should … have more transparency. Obviously this is still a developing story, but even having counselors or some sort of conversation would be really helpful.” Chen, who has taught at the University since 1993, was a professor for EECS 482 and EECS 498 this semester. He was the last person you would expect to do this, University alum Chris Combs said. “It’s a very horrible situation where someone who, on the one hand, so many students looked up to and respected, may have done something truly evil,” Combs said. See CHEN, Page 4

On Jan. 27, the Washtenaw County Health Department issued a two week long stay-in-place recommendation urging University of Michigan students living on or near the Ann Arbor campus to stay in their residences and avoid group contact. The recommendation came after numerous cases of the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant were discovered among University students, prompting Michigan Athletics to cease all activity for two weeks. The Daily spoke with students about their thoughts on the recent recommendation and whether they believed it would successfully curb the spread of the virus. Is it a recommendation or an order? The guidelines of the current stay-in-place recommendation for all undergraduate, graduate and professional students are very similar to the stay-at-home order directed solely at undergraduate students in October 2020. Other than the expanded range, the most notable difference is that the county refers to the current guidelines as recommendations rather than orders, so there are no enforcement mechanisms. The difference between an “order” and a “recommendation” has caused some students to question what the change will achieve. LSA junior Alyssa Frizzo said very few of the new recommendations are actually enforced. “I mean, the only truly enforced thing is that gyms are closed,” Frizzo said. “Nothing else is actually, definitively changed.” When asked about the difference between the fall’s order and the current recommendation,

University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said the county health department has had time to understand what other health departments and campus communities have done over the course of the pandemic. “I think the advice, collectively, is to handle these as recommendations, not as local health orders,” Fitzgerald said. LSA freshman Alexander Manthous said while the order in the fall semester helped reduce cases among students, several students got away with violating those guidelines. According to Manthous, evading these recommendations will be even easier this semester. “I know cases did go down last semester when they put that order in place, but it just seems like the University hasn’t been good at enforcing these rules,” Manthous said. Susan Ringler-Cerniglia, public information officer for WCHD, said the measure is proactive and focuses on urging compliance. “The recommendation is a recommendation, and we’re hoping for good compliance, but there’s not necessarily the same enforcement mechanism that there is with an order,” Ringler-Cerniglia said. Engineering freshman Sam Sugarman said the issue of compliance has plagued the University community throughout the pandemic. “To some extent, people just aren’t going to follow these guidelines,” Sugarman said. “I feel like people are following what they deem is safe, not what the county deems is safe. Kids are kids. They’re gonna do what they want. I think (the recommendation) is pretty ineffective, to be honest.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

ADMINISTRATION

U-M is negotiating with Anderson survivors. Here’s what that means Hundreds have alleged that the late doctor sexually abused them from 1968 to 2003 JULIANNA MORANO Daily Staff Reporter

DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily Students and families gather together to rally for opening Ann Arbor Public Schools amidst the COVID-19 pandemic Saturday afternoon.

“Get them back in school”: Ann Arbor Reasonable Return hosts rally for in-person school

Crowd of more than 100 call for optional end to virtual learning JASMIN LEE & NINA MOLINA

Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

With toddlers swaddled warmly in strollers, babies on parents’ shoulders and homemade signs in hand, over 100 parents, community members and Ann Arbor Public School students gathered downtown Saturday afternoon chanting “lead with facts, not with fear” in protest against AAPS’ decision to offer remote-only instruction indefinitely during the pandemic.

Ann Arbor Reasonable Return (A2R2) — an advocacy group seeking a reasonable approach to reopening schools — protested in front of the Ann Arbor Post Office on E. Liberty St. to demand in-person options for AAPS. More than 600 community members have signed a petition for in-person options, and nearly 130 physicians and pediatric providers signed a letter supporting A2R2’s goals. Since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down all K-12 schools in Michigan at the start of the pandemic, the district has implemented a virtual learning

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plan called Reimagine Learning to help students succeed during the pandemic. In early January, Whitmer announced that the state was recommending that all K-12 schools offer in-person learning options by March 1. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated guidelines saying schools can safely reopen with masks and social distancing requirements, citing evidence that shows schools are not a huge driver of community transmission. See RALLY, Page 4

Since the late University of Michigan athletic doctor Robert Anderson was named in numerous allegations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1970s, more than 70 lawsuits have been filed in federal court. Hundreds of former students allege Anderson sexually abused them while he was employed by the University from 1968 to 2003. Among these suits is a class action complaint which, unlike the individual lawsuits against the University representing specific plaintiffs, seeks to prosecute the University on behalf of all students affected by Anderson. The lawyers bringing the class action suit and those representing the University have been in mediation since mid-October. A settlement between the parties would offer monetary damages to the hundreds of former students Anderson allegedly abused. By including reform measures in their negotiations, it would also result in changes to the University’s sexual misconduct policy, which applies to all students, faculty and staff on the University’s three campuses. In an interview with The Michigan Daily last September, Annika Martin, the interim class counsel for the class action suit, said the lawsuit is unique because it aims for institutional reform as well

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INDEX

as collecting monetary damages for survivors. Martin has worked on previous class actions, including a now-settled case against George Tyndall, a former University of Southern California campus gynecologist, who sexually abused thousands of former patients. “Class actions can ask for change, not just money,” Martin said. “So that was one thing that was really important because when you have these institutions like USC, like U of M, like churches, like youth organizations, sports organizations, the institution needs to make changes to make sure that these kinds of things can never happen again.” When contacted by The Daily, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald declined to comment on active litigation. In October 2020, Fitzgerald told The Detroit News that “substantial changes” have been made to the University’s sexual misconduct policies and procedures over the past few years. The interim sexual misconduct policy, which took effect in August 2020, received a mix of support and criticism from the campus community for including cross-examination between the accuser and accused in cases of sexual misconduct. Fitzgerald also told The Detroit News the University is continuing to review the recommendations from WilmerHale, the law firm hired by the University to

Vol. CXXX, No. 18 ©2021 The Michigan Daily

investigate decades of sexual misconduct from former Provost Martin Philbert, as they consider further changes. In July, the WilmerHale report found Philbert committed numerous acts of sexual misconduct over the course of two decades at the University. The University has hired WilmerHale to investigate Anderson’s alleged behavior as well. Given a string of additional allegations against faculty in recent years — including against two professors in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, an English professor in LSA and, more recently, two professors in the College of Engineering — some student organizers argue the University’s policy changes are insufficient and hope the Anderson case will compel more robust change. Business freshman Aditi Jain, co-president of the on-campus survivor advocacy group Roe v. Rape, said the University’s choice to appoint professor Jason Mars’ to teach a required computer science course this semester despite allegations of sexual misconduct can be compared to the University’s alleged failure to respond to warnings about Anderson in the years he was employed.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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News

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CAMPUS LIFE

‘Perfect Pair’ matches students with assisted living residents to combat pandemic loneliness Organization started by University alum aims to facilitate interaction during COVID-19 DOMINICK SOKOTOFF Daily Staff Reporter

Having volunteered in assisted living facilities for more than three years, University of Michigan alum Emily Lerner said she noticed it was a challenge for senior residents to connect with their passions and the world beyond their facility. “Well before COVID, a lot of families stopped coming to visit,” Lerner said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. “And, on top of that, activities-wise, it’s a lot of bingo and ice cream socials. As fun as that can be, not every single person becomes 85 and wants to do bingo over and over. A lot of the residents were just getting a little bit antsy and feeling like they had lost any sort of connection to the outside world.” Throughout her college career, Lerner thought about whether she could do anything to solve this engagement problem in assisted living facilities. After graduating last spring into a pandemic and economic recession, she said she found there was an increasingly urgent need for a solution, and she had the time to act. In August 2020, Lerner founded Perfect Pair, an organization that brings University students and assisted living residents together amid a pandemic that has largely isolated seniors. In the few months since its creation, Perfect Pair has recruited more than 100 students, partnered with five

assisted living facilities across southeast Michigan and formed five internal committees to work on issues such as fundraising and programming. Lerner, as the organization’s executive director, is working to further grow Perfect Pair and prepare it for a postpandemic world. She said she is hoping to form a chapter of the organization at Michigan State University in the next year and a half, and she has applied for 501(c)(3) status so Perfect Pair can operate as a tax-exempt nonprofit.

“I just thought it was so beautiful that this club was focusing on still getting them that human interaction, even if it is virtual”

When the pandemic subsides, students will carpool to senior facilities for activities, which Lerner hopes will help engage residents who aren’t as technologically savvy or just prefer in-person interaction. LSA sophomore Melanie Esterine, a Perfect Pair member, said she joined the organization last fall so she

could build a strong connection with her pair, especially during the pandemic. “I just thought it was so beautiful that this club was focusing on still getting them that human interaction, even if it is virtual,” Esterine said. Perfect Pair tailors matches between students and residents by conducting preliminary questionnaires about their interests. Esterine said her match, Enid, used to be an English professor at the University, and the two bonded over their interests in reading, art and their hometown of New York City. “I already had a copy of ‘The Great Gatsby,’ and I had told (Enid) in our first meeting just as an introduction that that’s what I was reading at the moment,” Esterine said. “And she was like, ‘That’d be so great if we could read it together.’ So then Perfect Pair also provided her with the copy, and then we read it together. And when we finished it, we came back and discussed.” In addition to fulfilling individualized requests for supplies, Perfect Pair sends activity boxes to all students and residents so they can engage in activities like painting, planting and letterwriting over Zoom. Norma Aunins, a resident at Brecon Village Independent Living, said she decided to join Perfect Pair because she previously had talked with students on Facebook and wanted to try something new. “It was a way to continue having contact with the outside world because it gets kind of closed in around here during

this pandemic,” Aunins said. “I feel like I’m contributing to something.” Aunins said her match, Alexandria, shares interests in medicine and animals, and their chats help her keep up with younger generations. “I enjoy her personality,” Aunins said. “We seem to have a similar sense of humor and a lot of interests. This past week, she put on the screen a crossword puzzle, and we worked together. She being young got some answers that I never would have come up with, and me being the old lady of the crew … came up with a lot of other ones. So we really enjoyed that.” Aunins highlighted that residents and students alike benefit from the interactions. “I would highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest,” Aunins said. “It gives you contact with the outside world, it gives (students) something to do, where they’re contributing, and you also are contributing to their life experiences. So the interaction is great.” Even though participating in the program isn’t a big-time commitment, Esterine said it has made a positive impact on her life. “I feel like it’s added, as cheesy as this sounds, a friend or family member, just because Enid is so, so sweet,” Esterine said. “I genuinely enjoy speaking to her, I’ve learned so much from her and I’m just so inspired by her.” Daily Staff Reporter Dominick Sokotoff can be reached at sokotoff@michigandaily.com.

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the Winter 2021 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store. pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order. LSA sophomore Melanie Esterine speaks with her Perfect Pair match Enid over Zoom on Monday, January 25, 2021.

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News

Wednesday, February 3 , 2021 — 3

ACADEMICS

Receive your Michigan admission decision? Time to tell TikTok High school seniors take to popular app to share U-M acceptances, deferrals and even rejections

ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter

It was just after 3 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 29 when Cameron Allen, a senior at Laingsburg High School in Laingsburg, Mich., received the email he was waiting for. As Allen’s parents hovered over his shoulder, he clicked on his computer mouse and instantly jumped out of his seat in excitement. “I got in,” he shouted, looking directly at the camera he positioned to record his and his family’s reaction on TikTok, a popular video-sharing app that rose to prominence this past year. His parents’ faces morphed from anxious to a mix of relief and excitement as they saw the confetti appear on screen, signaling an acceptance to the University of Michigan. Allen hugged his parents as “Latch” by Disclosure and Sam Smith, a popular song among TikTok creators, played in the background. “I started recording because my school is super rural and most of the colleges I applied to nobody else did,” Allen said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. “I’m doing this to show my classmates they can achieve the impossible … somebody from a small town in Michigan can get into these highachieving schools.” Allen’s 40-second TikTok followed the script of a typical college admission reaction video: family huddling around a nervous applicant, looks of anxiety washing away to excitement or disappointment when the decision appears on screen. As TikTok continues to climb in popularity, particularly with Generation Z users, it has become a go-to platform for sharing these moments. When the University’s early action admissions decisions came out Friday afternoon, hundreds of high school seniors vying for a spot in the class of 2025 turned to TikTok to share their results. For

creators such as Julia Heilman, a senior at Clarkston High School in Clarkston, Mich., it was like a chain reaction: she saw reactions from other applicants on the platform and wanted to add hers to the growing pool. “I thought I’d film my reaction because I didn’t have anyone home at the time and wanted to open it right away,” Heilman said. “Then, I saw other people make videos and thought, ‘This makes me happy, I might as well share it.’” An atypical application cycle College applicants around the world are turning to TikTok to share updates throughout this application cycle. Some users have “dueted” old videos about the admissions process — meaning they put an older video next to a newer video within one frame — as they heard back from each school they applied to. This trend of posting decision reactions on TikTok became popular when Tulane University began releasing early decision and early action results in November, though this type of video has been made since the early days of YouTube. Admissions offices at schools like the University of Florida and Louisiana State University started using the platform this year to reach the next generation of applicants. Whether on TikTok or not, admissions offices across the country have spent the last year creating virtual replacements for the campus tours and college fairs lost to the ongoing pandemic in hopes of connecting with prospective students. Following the lead of other colleges across the country, the University of Michigan instituted a test-flexible application policy in response to canceled and postponed SAT and ACT testing dates due to the pandemic. The early action deadline was pushed two weeks later than normal this year, meaning decisions did not come out until a month later than

they did in prior cycles. With a public health-adjusted school year and campus tours now virtual or self-guided, it has become more difficult for prospective students to understand the Michigan experience beyond what is available online or on social media. But TikTok and other social media platforms allow admitted students to find other admittees and get a better understanding of the school without physically being there, according to Olivia Phillips, a senior at Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey who was accepted to the University Friday. The #umich2025 hashtag, which Phillips and other creators used when posting decision reactions, has accumulated more than 300,000 views on TikTok. In addition to amassing more than 20,000 views, Phillips’ video received comments from other accepted students, allowing her to virtually meet potential peers. “I’ve already created my own little community within less than 24 hours just from social media, which has been absolutely incredible,” Phillips said. “Even though we can’t have those in-person experiences, it’s not completely lost because we’ve been able to remedy that with other methods.” College acceptances caught on camera When some applicants got the email notifying them that their early action results were available on Friday afternoon, they waited to open them until they could set up their camera and record the outcome. Others said they held off on making videos until after knowing they were accepted to avoid being on camera if they received bad news. Some admittees took to TikTok to tell the world that their dreams came true, but for those who received a result they weren’t hoping for, it was to tell of a

dream deferred. The University’s freshman class acceptance rate typically falls around 25%, making gaining acceptance competitive and deferrals common in the early action round. In a video announcing he got deferred, one applicant asked, “Did anyone actually get in?” For those who were accepted, they wanted to share their acceptances with classmates, but that was difficult to do with many still learning from home. According to Jeanie Chang, a senior at Northwest High School in Germantown, Md. who made a video after being accepted to LSA, TikTok is one solution to this issue because it allows seniors to share their results with peers around the world. Chang said posting admissions decisions to TikTok is less taboo than on other apps like Instagram because the algorithm of videos makes the platform feel less formal and tied to one’s personal image. In her experience, TikTok has become

a virtual community where seniors can come together to celebrate one another’s victories or provide support to those who got undesired results. “This is one way of coping with losing out on senior year, and it’s fun to celebrate with others,” Chang said. “Even though I got rejected from other schools, I’m living vicariously through other people. It’s just fun to hype people up.” A genre of its own Though TikTok has risen in popularity as a hub for sharing the highs and lows of the college admissions process, the app hasn’t dethroned other platforms used to share college-related intel. College Confidential, a messaging forum used by applicants and their families to speculate about admissions across the world, lit up like it has in previous years as applicants began posting their results to the University-focused page.

YouTube is also still a destination for these videos as well as longer, vlog-style posts about the admissions process. Chang, who is waiting for all of her admissions decisions before making a final decision on where to attend, is recording her reaction to the decision of every school she applied to so she can eventually make a YouTube video about her college selection experience.De College acceptance videos have become somewhat of their own genre, specifically on YouTube, and TikTok offers another avenue for sharing these short, high-energy videos with a wide audience. Because TikTok’s algorithm system displays videos from users beyond just those who someone follows — on a feed known as the “For You Page” — admittees’ reactions spread widely.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Design by Allison Engkvist High school students reacts to their acceptances to the University of Michigan over TikTok.

CAMPUS LIFE

Student-run site ‘Study Buddies’ helps classmates connect during virtual semester Website designed by undergraduates reaches almost 13,000 users during online learning

MARTHA LEWAND Daily Staff Reporter

As Engineering sophomores Sam Forman and Varun Jindal prepared to return to virtual classes last semester, they said they dreaded the thought of being physically isolated from their future classmates. As a result, the two came up with an idea to help with common problems students experience during online learning. “We thought of this site — it was pretty simple, right?” Forman said. “All we had

to do was match students in virtual classes, and we created the site in about a week and posted on our (class) Facebook group chat. It blew up more than we were expecting.” The site is called StudyBuddies — a platform where students fill out a short form about which classes they are taking and their personal study habits. An algorithm matches students in the same class into small study groups. According to Forman, about 7,000 students signed up for StudyBuddies at the University of Michigan last

semester and the number increased to almost 13,000 for the winter semester. “That’s a tremendous amount of the (U-M) community that now has people to reach out to if they need it,” Forman said. “Not every single one of those people ended up reaching out and forming a necessarily deeper friendship, but every single person had someone to reach out to in a time of need.” Jindal said more than 25% of all the StudyBuddies users who formed study groups met more than five times. Engineering freshman

Nicolette Kleinhoffer said she utilized StudyBuddies for her classes last semester and had a positive experience even though not every student she matched with was responsive. She said people in her Math 115 study group always responded quickly which was especially beneficial since synchronous class time was limited. “For my math class, if we (my classmates) ran into issues, we had this group chat where we could say, ‘Hey, I keep getting this answer wrong, I think this part is wrong … what do you think I should try?’” Kleinhoffer

Design by Cara Jhang

said. “It was a place to ask for advice without having to go straight to a professor or GSI (Graduate Student Instructor).” Kleinhoffer also said the StudyBuddies group chat was useful for catching up on assignments and notes in addition to being a collaborative space to help members understand concepts from their classes. “If you missed class or something, you could get notes from the people who were in your classes,” Kleinhoffer said. “Or if you weren’t really clear on an assignment, you could ask them, and that helped me a lot too.” Due to the success of StudyBuddies at the University this past semester, Forman and Jindal sought to expand the site to other colleges. “We saw it doing really well at Michigan, we saw it was helping people,” Jindal said. “So then we were thinking, ‘Hey, this winter semester is going to be mostly virtual at pretty much every school in the nation. How do we bring this to another school?’ So we reached out to some contacts that we had: one at UChicago and one at UCLA. Because they’re on the quarter system, we knew that if we could launch at this perfect time — right before classes start, we could give them study groups.” According to Forman, about one-third of undergraduate students at the University of Chicago and one-tenth at the University of California at Los Angeles signed up for StudyBuddies. While the site has a presence at these institutions, Forman

and Jindal said they want to primarily focus on improving and expanding StudyBuddies at the University for the time being. StudyBuddies will look a little different this semester compared to the fall semester. To make the connection between students more seamless, StudyBuddies will send students an email with a GroupMe link specific to the small group they matched with any particular class. “Going forward for this semester, we did two things,” Jindal said. “One, we were more focused on the community. Two, we were also more focused on the actual connection itself. We are sending everyone a group chat link.” This concentration on community and seamless connections led Forman and Jindal to create an offspring of StudyBuddies, called Find My Class GroupMe — a site where any student can find and join larger class-wide GroupMe chats. “We’ve been thinking a lot about ‘community’ and how to create community in the classroom, and a lot of thought went into that this semester — trying to understand what actually does create community,” Jindal said. “Like, ‘Why did StudyBuddies work, and what we can do going forward?’ That’s been a challenge. And that’s why we ended up, for this semester, creating this larger community group chat — that’s what Find My Class GroupMe is for.” Daily Staff Reporter Martha Lewand can be reached at mlewand@umich.edu.

News

4 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

U-M research raises awareness of racially restrictive covenants in Ann Arbor housing CITY

Two ‘U’ professors find 66 A2 subdivisions with racially discriminatory terms in contracts

SHANNON STOCKING Daily Staff Reporter

A significant number of Ann Arbor suburbs and individual houses have racially-restrictive sections in their covenants — which bar people of color, particularly Black Americans, from home ownership — according to research from University of Michigan Law professor Michael Steinberg and Urban Planning assistant professor Robert Goodspeed. Goodspeed and Steinberg presented their findings to the Ann Arbor Planning Commission on Jan. 12, looking to raise awareness about the covenants included in many Ann Arbor residents’ deeds and the looming presence of racism they said many locals are ignorant of. “Most Ann Arbor residents believe that they live in a progressive community that is enlightened on issues of race,” Steinberg wrote in a February 2020 letter to the members of the project committee. “Racism and white supremacy may plague many other parts of the country, the thinking goes, but Ann Arbor is an island where people of color have enjoyed equal opportunity for generations. The reason Ann Arbor neighborhoods are still segregated, many think, is because housing prices are so high in the city, not because of race discrimination.” But despite Ann Arbor’s progressive reputation, Steinberg and Goodspeed found 66 subdivisions within the Ann Arbor city limit with some variation of racial discrimination in their covenants, pointing to the legacy of institutionalized racism in the community. “(The covenants) were private agreements, mostly in new subdivisions when a developer came in in order to get funding from the banks or government, they wanted to make it an exclusively white neighborhood,” Steinberg told The Michigan Daily. “And so there would be portions of the deed next to ‘no fences or

RALLY From Page 1 Many parents and Ann Arbor residents who oppose a return to in-person learning fear that opening schools could widen disparities that exist for people of color, particularly Black people, who are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The district, as well as some parents and teachers, also cite the lack of vaccines for teachers and the cluster of the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant in Ann Arbor as reasons to stay with virtual learning. Since the state began distributing the COVID-19 vaccine in December, more parents are pushing to put their children back into a classroom rather than in front of a screen. In mid-January, teachers became eligible to receive the vaccine under Phase 1B, though limited supply has meant that most AAPS teachers have not yet been vaccinated. Lena Kaufman, A2R2 rally organizer and Ann Arbor parent, said the goal of the rally was to support Whitmer’s guidance and encourage schools to offer in-person options for younger students and students who have special needs, since their wellbeing relies on professionally trained staff provided by the state. “We’re putting this day together because we really believe that Governor Gretchen Whitmer is right about the fact that schools can be safe, lowrisk environments for children and teachers,” Kaufman said. “They have a lot of data now that backs that up over here. Her goal of getting kids, especially the youngest and special needs kids, giving them an option (...) by March 1st is quite reasonable and we want to show up and signal our support.” Ann Arbor resident Sara Talpos, a science journalist at Undark Magazine, told The Daily she attended the rally

no frats’ that would say certain things.” One of the most common racially-restrictive covenants present in Ann Arbor reads: “no part of said land shall be occupied by persons not of the Caucasian race except as guests or servants.”Other covenants say only people of the Christian faith are allowed to live on the property, Steinberg said in the planning commission meeting. The racist agreement is typically listed under agreements that the homeowner must sign. When Steinberg bought his first house on the Old West Side in 1985, he was surprised when he found out that the house has a racially-restrictive covenant. “I read through my closing documents and talked to my real estate agent and I said, ‘What is this, I can’t believe this is part of the house I’m buying,’” Steinberg said. “She responded that it wasn’t enforced, and that I shouldn’t worry about it because there are lots of houses in Ann Arbor with the covenants.” When Steinberg originally talked to a lawyer about removing the racial covenant in the 1980s, he said he was told the removal process was long and expensive and an attempt to remove it was not worth it. Steinberg’s current house also has a racially-restrictive covenant in its deed, he said. The covenants are no longer enforceable, as the 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court case ruled that racially-restrictive covenants are in violation of the 14th Amendment, the equal protection clause. “Before 1948, if I sold my house to a Black family, my neighbor had the ability to sue me, preventing a Black person from buying the house,” Steinberg told The Daily. “And the courts upheld them. They said this is a private agreement among all neighborhood residents, and Michigan Supreme Court held that it was constitutional to enter into these private agreements.” After living in Ann Arbor for 36 years, Steinberg told The Daily he promised himself that one day because she was concerned about students’ mental health. After reading a New York Times article discussing how Las Vegas public schools were pushed to re-open due to an increase in teenage suicides, Talpos said she hoped AAPS would open safely to avoid this kind of mental health crisis. “I came out because I’m really concerned about the mental health effect of keeping students outside of classrooms for too long,” Talpos said. “I know that remote learning is working for some kids, but a lot of our kids are very isolated right now, and our local pediatricians have been talking about increases in depression and anxiety, and the recent article by Erica Green on suicides really worries me a lot.” Kai Cortina, a University of Michigan professor of educational psychology and parent of two AAPS students, spoke to the crowd about how his home country of Germany kept schools open while also ensuring student safety. “Why is it that the Ann Arbor Public Schools, one of the richest school districts (...) is unable to learn the same way that the entire country has learned how to handle the crisis in schools, I don’t understand it,” Cortina said. Alan Simpson-Vlach, a math teacher teaching in person in Oakland County and parent of two AAPS students, said while he is impressed by the district’s investments in virtual learning technology, he worries about the impact of virtual learning on student achievement. “The achievement gap continues to widen,” SimpsonVlach said. “Reading progress has come to a standstill. Depression and anxiety have become entrenched, and the well-being of whole families has suffered. Since when did the education of our children become a third-tier priority?” Kim Monroe, pediatric hospitalist and AAPS parent, also said virtual classes have led to an increase in mental health issues. Monroe said she believes AAPS

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily A significant number of Ann Arbor suburbs and individual houses have racially restrictive sections in their covenants.

he would do something about the covenants. He runs a clinic at the Law School called The Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. His clinic gives students the opportunity to work on civil rights cases in a professional clinic setting. “We decided that we would make one of our projects a project to educate people about raciallyrestrictive covenants in Ann Arbor and to work with policymakers to show how racially-restrictive covenants cause housing segregation and discrimination today,” Steinberg said. “And then take action to eliminate them on homes in Ann Arbor.” Steinberg’s work in the clinic has extended to a committee including community members, city officials, students and other professors. The advisory board and project committee approach this topic with an open-ended educational aspect, as well as a hope to create policy changes, according to Goodspeed. Goodspeed is working with the committee to create an interactive map of Ann Arbor that will show which houses have raciallyrestrictive covenants on them. Mapping these covenants can help is capable of safely reopening schools. “By this point in time, it’s not even a question of whether it’s safe or not,” Monroe said. “It’s a question of whether we’re going to do it or not, and I truly believe that the AAPS teachers, school board and superintendent can do this. I believe in them and I think that we can make this happen.” Ann Arbor resident Krysten Salla told The Daily she has observed a lack of resources for students with disabilities and English language learners. “(Students with disabilities and English learners) are really suffering and it’s really hard for them to get the services they need,” Salla said. “It’s really making a bigger achievement gap of kids that have the money and the resources to learn at home, or to get extra tutors and the kids that don’t, and those kids are really suffering.” One Ann Arbor parent, Kristine McWilliams, told The Daily she opted to move her children to a nearby school holding in-person classes. “Sadly, I am a former parent of Ann Arbor school district children,” McWilliams said. “I have a first and fourth grader, and virtual education was just not an option for us, so we transferred this year to a local charter school.” Like other parents at the protest, Alan Simpson-Vlach said he believes that with determination and vision, AAPS can bring students back into classrooms safely. “I call on the leaders of my school district, the Ann Arbor Public Schools, to get off the dime,” Alan Simpson-Vlactch said. “Stop congratulating yourself on how well you are serving our top students and start serving all students. Get them back in school.” Daily News Editor Jasmin Lee can be reached at itsshlee@ umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporter Nina Molina can be reached at nimolina@umich.edu.

to influence policy makers, call for legislative action and assist in community education, Steinberg said in the planning commission meeting. Kiera O’Connor is a youth activist on the committee who has been working closely to develop community education programs. At the Planning Commission meeting, she said as a young woman of color, it’s hard to imagine closing on a house and then finding a racially restrictive covenant in the documents. “You know you’re buying this wonderful house and you’re so excited,” O’Connor said at the meeting. “And then you see this and you just don’t really feel welcome in the community. And it’s just, it’s really just imagining how uncomfortable that would be. And also, these restrictive covenants have kind of created Ypsilanti in a way, because they drove people of color out of Ann Arbor.” Naina Agrawal-Hardin, a member of the advisory board committee, said racial zoning — legal practices in urban planning designed to exclude racial and ethnic minorities — is responsible for creating predominantly white

CHEN From Page 1 Combs took two of Chen’s courses during his time at the University and also attended the same church as Chen, where Combs said he had gotten to know Chen and his family very well. “When I saw the email I was like, this has to be a typo or something, this is just crazy,” Combs said. “I just wanted to read through the email three or four times to just process what they were saying and accept it.” Engineering junior James Vidano is currently enrolled in Chen’s EECS 482 class and said he was also surprised when he found out about the allegations against Chen. “In class, we talked about him as being a super smart, legendary figure who designs computer science courses and just knows an insane amount about the whole computer science world,” Vidano said. “It was really surprising, it was the last person we (would) possibly expect to be in this situation.” EECS 482 is taught by three different professors, and Chen had not yet taught a lecture before being put on administrative leave, Vidano said. The lecture has not met since the news about Chen was released, according to Vidano, and the class has not yet acknowledged the situation. On Ratemyprofessors.com, a site where students rank their professors in terms of difficulty, likability and quality, Chen receives a high rating of 4.6 on a 5-point scale. He also received a 99% rating on University of Michigan’s course atlas, which provides course information like enrollment numbers and instructor ratings based on data collected from previous semesters. Chen has also been awarded the Eta Kappa Nu EECS professor of the year five times, which takes undergraduate and graduate students’ opinions and experiences into the selection of

Ypsilanti area, Agrawal-Hardin said. It is difficult to do a lot of community outreach during the pandemic, but the project is just at its beginning and will hopefully be ready for community education when COVID-19 is over, Steinberg said. Goodspeed said the research of the project has continued throughout the pandemic and is manageable to work from home on it. “It’s moved a lot quicker than we expected from the goodwill of different stakeholders,” Goodspeed said. “The title industry and company allowed us access to their proprietary files to speed up our ability to discover subdivisions that have spatial covenants. In addition, the County Register of deeds is very supportive, giving us access to files.” Agrawal-Hardin said the planning committee is eager for more information about the covenants to be released. “I want people to know: it’s not your fault that you don’t know about (the covenants) because there’s been a concentrated effort, both where we live and in the rest of our country and in the rest of our world, to cover up and deny and minimize the these histories of discrimination,” Agrawal-Hardin said. In the future, Steinberg said he hopes the project will be able to provide community education on the history of these covenants and eventually remove the racial covenants from the deeds. “Part of the reason we’re doing this is to illustrate that Ann Arbor thinks it’s enlightened on racial justice issues, and that there’s no history of white supremacy,” Steinberg said. “But, there’s no better way, in our view, to bring that point home than to show that the very homes that thousands of people are living in have raciallyrestrictive covenants that prohibit people of color to live there.”

communities that isolate people of color. “It’s one piece of a much broader societal puzzle that is still telling people of color, and especially Black people, that they don’t belong in certain sectors of society, or that they’re not good enough to live in integrated neighborhoods to go to integrated schools,” AgrawalHardin told The Daily. “And that’s just so fundamentally unjust.” The life expectancies in Washtenaw County and the neighboring Wayne County have over 6.5 years difference, and this is just one of the problems that racial zoning creates, Agrawal-Hardin said. These problems are shown in disparities between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. In an article comparing Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti opportunities, Ann Arbor had much higher levels of job access, neighborhood stability, economic well-being, and health rankings. Steinberg said he and the committee are focused on providing education on racial covenants in hope for a solution in the future. The educational outreach committee is focused Daily Staff Reporter Shanon making curriculum for K-12 non Stocking can be reached at students in the Ann Arbor and sstockin@umich.edu.

the award. The award is given down two weeks after the first to a professor who has made public allegations against Mars. beneficial contributions to the Only six months later, Chen also community and had a profound stepped down from the position, impact on students. citing “personal reasons” in an Ross and Engineering junior email sent to COE faculty in July Gloria Stach was enrolled in 2020. Chen’s ENGR 100 class a year Separate from the allegations ago, which she said motivated against Chen, Combs reflected her to learn more about computer on the typical culture within the science. University’s computer science “I was completely shocked and department, which he said is often still kind of in disbelief, of the focused around getting to one of news that came out today, just the top five tech companies. To because I remember from day rebuild trust and community in one in class, he would talk about a department that has now been how he was such a religious man rocked by two recent allegations and he was also a family man, of misconduct, it needs to be more and he seemed to have very high than that, Combs said. morals and standards,” Stach “I’ve been a personal believer said. for a long time that (the computer The announcement comes science department) in general after recent controversy in the really needs to get serious CSE department regarding about ethics and just think as the appointment of assistant a profession taking the human professor Jason Mars, who faced aspect more seriously,” Combs allegations of sexual misconduct said. “Obviously, there’s an aspect at his startup Clinc in Feb. 2020, of diversity there and an aspect of to teach EECS 370 for the winter empathy that’s necessary.” 2021 semester. An email template And even outside of CSE, calling for Mars’ removal from considering the string of sexual teaching the course, which is misconduct allegations against required for all EECS majors, faculty and staff at the University circulated over winter break, within the last few years, Combs though Mars continues to be an said he wishes the mentality at instructor for the class. the University was more that Elkolaly said Gallimore everyone had a responsibility emphasized in the meeting the towards society as a whole and to rarity of two professors in the one another. same department getting accused “The University often talks of sexual misconduct in one about getting the Leaders the year, referring to both Mars and Best, we often pull ourselves up Chen. Elkolaly said she thinks the and think of ourselves as being decision to keep accused faculty different or special, because we’re on staff has made it difficult for a little smarter, or because you students to focus on learning. got into Michigan,” Combs said. “With Jason Mars, he was on “We have been given positions tenure, and the administration of power, either as faculty or basically said that he’s still students who have been given teaching because he did not do the opportunity to come here, anything to remove his status and I really think there is a need as a professor,” Elkolaly said. “A to refocus our culture on using bunch of other women that are that power responsibly towards terrified to go to class now would thinking about those who are say otherwise — I’m of the opinion marginalized or those who don’t that it shouldn’t even be an option have a voice in our community.” to interact with him.” Daily News Reporter ShanChen was appointed to interim chair of the CSE department after non Stocking can be reached at sstockin@umich.edu. predecessor Brian Noble stepped

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Arts

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 5

SUNDANCE 2021

‘CODA’ is a remarkable take

on the coming-of-age story JUDITH LAWRENCE Daily Arts Writer

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival kicked off with “CODA,” written and directed by Sian Heder (“Tallulah”). Based on the 2014 French film “La Famille Bélier,” “CODA” follows Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones, “Locke and Key”), a 17-year-old CODA (child of deaf adults). When she joins her school’s choir, she is torn between helping out with her family’s business and embracing her love for music. Although at times predictable, “CODA” provides a comedic, heartwarming and fresh perspective on the traditional coming-of-age story with some truly astonishing performances. As the only hearing member of her family, she works with her fishermen father and brother, played by Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant in their film debuts. Completing the family is her mother, played by the brilliant Marlee Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”). The four of them have such remarkable chemistry; whether the family is silently working out at sea or arguing at the dinner table, the audience is fully immersed in their dynamic.

The strength of “CODA” truly lies in the performances and relationships of these four actors. Because Ruby can hear, she acts as her family’s interpreter in their work life. She doesn’t plan on leaving home and going to college until her choir teacher (Eugenio Derbez, “The Book of Life”) encourages her to audition for the Berklee College of Music. Ruby’s passion and talent are beautifully struck against the pressure that she feels to stay and help her family. Heder creates a vivid life for these characters, f lawlessly demonstrating the role that Ruby has played in her family since she was a child. But the members of her family, particularly her parents, are given the same depth and compassion. They too are conf licted, bearing the same worries that any parent has about their child growing up and leaving for college. This conf lict is beautifully expressed in what are arguably two of the best scenes in the film. At Ruby’s choir concert, her family sits in the audience, excited to see her perform. But they also watch as the people around them clap along to the beat of the songs or are moved to tears by the performances. The sound cuts out (the only time it does in the film),

showing the separation that exists bet ween the t wo things that are most important in Ruby’s life. Af ter the concert, as Ruby and her dad sit outside together, he asks her to sing her solo for him. He rests his hands on her throat as she sings, feeling the vibrations of her vocal cords. This moment is intimate and beautif ul, and it perfectly encapsulates all the conf licting emotions that the characters face throughout the f ilm. “CODA” is a brilliant addition to the coming-ofage genre. While there may be many f ilms about the anxieties of a high school senior about to leave home, there are none quite like this. Despite its formulaic qualities, “CODA” is moving and distinctive, packing an emotional punch by using a somewhat overused plot to tell a unique stor y, one that has historically been rare to f ind in the f ilm industr y. But, perhaps this won’t be the case for much longer. The cast and crew of “CODA” are calling for more collaboration bet ween the deaf communit y and Holly wood. While it’s been a long time coming, hopef ully, “CODA” is just the beg inning of a new wave of representation. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

SUNDANCE 2021

‘Cryptozoo’ is Wes Anderson meets LSD

ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer

In a U.S. base on Okinawa, just after World War II, a little girl dreams of the atom bomb. A creature called the Baku comes to eat her nightmares. This girl, named Lauren and played by Lake Bell (“In a World”), grows up to become a Cryptid rescuer, saving beings like the Baku from those who seek to imprison or exploit them. She takes the creatures to the Cryptozoo, just outside San Francisco. Written and directed by Dash Shaw (“My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea”), “Cryptozoo” debuted as part of Sundance’s “Next” series, which they describe as “original visions and genredefying work.” A kaleidoscopic vision that’s completely handdrawn, “Cryptozoo” is more than just original — it’s a singular, electrifying vision. During the Q&A session following the film, Shaw cited a quote from Picasso as inspiration: “Everything you can imagine is real.” Under the supervision of Animation Director Jane Samborski (“Hitiro The Peasant”), “Cryptozoo” fulfills this promise, making incredible use of its animated composition to bring its fantastical narrative to chimeric life.

Each frame, literally a painting, bursts with color, texture and secrets. The visuals also transform to suit the story’s mood, going anywhere from the photorealistic to the insanely abstract, conveying emotion so powerful it becomes overwhelming. Inspired by the aesthetic and perspective of late 1960s radical art, the movie’s no-holds-barred approach to sex and violence is also startlingly unique in American animation, giving the story a lingering weight that’s hard to shake. It’s a beautiful acid trip combined with a nightmare, then illustrated by Blake, Bosch and Basquiat. The film is set in 1967 when Lauren is on a race to find the Baku before the U.S. government captures it. The Feds seek to use its dreameating powers to consume those of the counterculture, snuffing out the hippies and protesters for good. Traveling with a Gorgon (one of the snake-haired beasts of Greek mytholog y) named Phoebe, who Shaw described as a “human-passing ” Cryptid, Lauren’s quest takes her from snowy Russian peaks to a small Kentucky town. Led by Bell, the cast, which includes Michael Cera (“Arrested Development”) and Grace Zabriskie (“Twin Peaks: The

Return”), sells the wonder and agony of a world where Cryptids walk among us. “Cryptozoo” combines the speculative wit of Kurt Vonnegut, the visual surrealism of David Lynch and the aloof humor of Wes Anderson, with a helping of “Jurassic Park.” It’s more than this clumsy approximation, though. “Cryptozoo” isn’t just strange for strangeness’s sake — there’s a reason behind its madness, a bedrock of meaning beneath its shimmering psychedelic veneer. “Cryptozoo” is about being strange in America. Be it different races, sexualities, gender identities or species, this country has not been kind to those who aren’t WASPs. The movie references imperialism, marriage and Disney World but, however, it’s manifested, the Cryptids are violently oppressed by an imposed normality, which seeks to snuff out their colorful lives. They’re assaulted, demeaned, boxed in or given a price tag by every human they meet. It’s no wonder they want to escape. In 2021, when American institutions have wrought more havoc than they have in decades, the box office charts are dominated by carbon-copies and humans continue destroying the environment, “Cyptozoo’s” anthemic strangeness couldn’t have come at a better time.

SUNDANCE 2021

The final day is just like any other in ‘How It Ends’ EMMA CHANG Daily Arts Writer

I definitely wouldn’t survive an apocalypse. I’m blind without contacts, would probably be ambushed while flossing and have no real discernible survival skills. Luckily, a long, drawn-out apocalypse is not how it ends for Liza (Zoe Lister-Jones, “BandAid”). Instead, Liza’s final day on Earth begins with someone stealing her car and forcing her on an oddly casual walk through the city of Los Angeles to make her way to a party; the looming presence of mortality is a meteor casting only a small shadow over the entire day. Directed and written by Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein (“White Rabbit”), “How It Ends” follows Liza and a younger version of herself (Cailee Spaeny, “The Craft”) as they traipse across LA, righting wrongs, embracing flaws and yelling at Liza’s awful hipster ex Larry (Lamorne Morris,“New Girl”). Spaeny’s younger Liza is quickly brushed off as metaphysical — generally unseen by the world, she’s a voice of nostalgia and innocence throughout the film. Their relationship eventually comes to a head in a teary confrontation, forcing the audience to consider the difference between a healthy connection with your younger self and never letting go of the past. Following the premiere, Lister-Jones and Wein sat down with members of the cast to answer questions about the film. The one on everyone’s

mind: How in the world do you make a film during the middle of a pandemic? The directors talked about working through the beginning of the pandemic through film, a kind of therapy for the two of them (of course, not in place of actual therapy, another joke cracked by Wein). They noted that shooting occurred mostly during the spring and summer of 2020 and it’s obvious; Lister-Jones and Wein created an apocalypse film that carries the peaceful atmosphere of pandemic breadmaking and a time before the BA test kitchen fell to pieces. Given the timing of filming, that also meant that the actors stood several feet apart during many of the shots and everything was filmed outside. Safety precautions lent themselves, surprisingly, to beautiful wide shots of the streets of LA. It’s not just the visual aspects of the film that were affected by pandemic precautions. “How It Ends” consists of a series of cameos within scenes made up of Lister-Jones, Spaeny and one to two other people, some who weren’t even in the room. Finn Wolf hard (“It”) makes an appearance over Facetime, and Sharon Van Etten performs a haunting original song that highlights the tension between young Liza’s naive sense of ambition and older Liza’s hesitations about singing with a stranger. Nick Kroll (“Big Mouth”) is the first person to acknowledge Liza’s metaphysical younger self: Until this final day on Earth, younger Liza was invisible to the world.

The meeting between the three characters begins to establish the metaphysical Liza in the “real” world, while simultaneously instilling the fear of dying alone into both the characters and the audience. This setup of encounter after encounter, borne out of necessity, is still able to provide the kind of narrative satisfaction we find in classic

ensemble films like “Valentine’s Day” or “Love Actually.” And while these cameos push the story along, it’s the relationship between Liza and her younger self that makes the film such a relatable piece, despite the fact that none of us are making our way to a party anytime soon. The pandemic has forced many of us back into childhoods

we thought we left behind once entering college; who would have thought I would be spending my senior year typing up a Sundance review, not in the comfort of my dorm, frantically trying to finish before a night out, but casually in my room with my parents next door? My transition wasn’t even that jarring — I had the habit of returning

home most weekends, to see my dog, to use the kitchen, normal things. But when school closed and relaxing jaunts home were required extended stays, a lot of us started walking around with a shadow of our younger selves, analyzing past encounters, revisiting old friends, though without the impending doom of a meteor. Just a virus. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Arts

6 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SUNDANCE 2021

‘Ailey’ is a venerable portrait of a titan of American dance and his demons ROSS LONDON Daily Arts Writer

“Alvin Ailey is black, and he’s universal,” said the late Cicely Tyson of the celebrated choreographer and hero of American dance when he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988. Jamila Wignot’s (“Town Hall”) new documentary “Ailey” chronicles the life of its namesake with attention to his key works. Woven into the story of his life, the documentary shows the work of the contemporary company, performing modern dance infused with Ailey’s spirit. An only child born to a single mother in Texas in 1931, Ailey drew on his experiences in youth to tell a story of what it means to be Black in America. Shari Frilot, the curator

of Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier program, introduced the film as a showcase of Black joy. This joy, interlaced with coexistent Black pain, is richly layered and powerfully present in the archival footage of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performances and interviews with Ailey. The film, and much of Ailey’s choreography, functions as a reverential ode to Black perseverance through music and movement. Ailey found dance after moving to Los Angeles as a child, where in the Ballets Russe de Monte-Carlo he discovered a “new world.” As a Black man, his own relationship with dance was energized by Katherine Dunham, whose movement, Ailey said, “touched something Texas in me.” From his first encounters

with the art, Ailey drew on memory, personal and collective, harnessing his own emotion to stir emotion in his viewer. His 1960 work, “Revelations,” which became one of his most renowned works, is virtuosic physical poetry about the history of Black experience in America. Rennie Harris, a contemporary choreographer who has worked with the AAADT, called the dancer a “physical historian.” By this account, Ailey was a genius historiographer. The film’s most moving and marvelous storytelling remembers this genius and the toll it took. Ailey’s colleagues and friends reflect on the dissonance between man and idea; how he was used as a poster boy for racial progress, and how the immensity of his

artistic genius overwhelmed his personal enclosure. His lack of close relationships, compounded by the stress of spectacular success, eroded Ailey’s mental health as he poured more of himself into his work than he was able to give. This powerful feeling and Ailey’s emotion are resurrected by the stories of his peers, the footage of his choreography, his interviews and mesmerizing found footage. Throughout the film, we are shown his surroundings: Texas in the 1930s, Los Angeles in the ’40s and New York in the ’70s and ’80s. When the company travels to Paris, we are transported to Paris. Editor Annukka Lilja did her own “choreography,” as Harris described it in the post-screening Q&A, beautifully bringing Ailey’s recorded voice into the visual present through

montage. The effect is the telling of an untold story, through a novel and brilliantly artistic choreographic filmography. Ailey died from complications of AIDS in 1989, but his spirit lives on. Judith Jamison, dancer and second AAADT artistic director, recalled that Ailey’s last breath was an inhale; she sees the continued work of the company as his collective and enduring exhale. The splendor of this idea is representative of the film as a whole, which is a poetic biography of a man who fought the demons of fame to tell the Black American saga through movement. Ailey’s “Revelations” became one of his most iconic works. Drawing on Black culture and the role of church therein, the dancers ooze sorrowful sentimentality and spirited joy. I found the footage of “Revelations”

to be the most moving of the works included in the film. To meditate briefly on the title of this work, which evokes the book of Revelation and its prophecy of apocalypse, I am struck by the poignancy of this parallel. That such a seminal work, situated at the beginning of Ailey’s illustrious career, should have this association with “end times” is a sort of sweet reclamation. Ailey transformed endings into beginnings, just as he made a space for Black joy in dance. The AAADT dancers have done the same, turning the end of Ailey’s life into an opportunity to exhale his creative energy into the world. Jamila Wignot has meticulously sculpted a successful portrait of the amaranthine spirit of an American hero.

SUNDANCE 2021

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson confront colorism in ‘Passing’ Negga, “Ad Astra”), a childhood MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON friend who she had known as Daily Arts Writer Black but now chooses to pass as white. Clare and Irene are I was wary about “Passing” both light-skinned Black women, when I found out that it was though it’s unclear if either of written and directed by Rebecca them have a white parent or if Hall (“Christine”). While I their complexions were just up love her work, I tend to harbor to chance. Irene has married resentment for white people who a wealthy Black man and lives tell Black stories, especially one in Harlem with her two darkso dear to me as a mixed race skinned sons, while the blonde Black woman. But after seeing it, Clare married a racist white noting how much of the dialogue man who is unaware of her true was taken directly from Nella identity. The two women rekindle Larsen’s 1929 novella of the same their friendship but are at odds name and hearing the way Hall with the other’s choices in life. clearly thought carefully about It’s a beautiful story, and I highly her work (based on her responses recommend reading the source in the post-screening Q&A), any material. fears of co-opted stories were What’s so great about adapting wiped away. text to film is that it adds a In the Harlem Renaissance, whole new layer to the literary Irene (Tessa Thompson, “Dear experience. On the choice to film White People”), has a chance in a cramped aspect ratio, Hall encounter with Clare (Ruth said, “If you take a frame and then

squeeze it down so that there’s no room for anything but the face, I think that you sort of signal to the audience that this film is about scrutinizing a face.” Beyond even the moments where the leading women’s faces are studied in attempts to decode their ethnic makeup, there are so many imperceptible changes, in Irene’s face in particular, that seem to reveal just how repressed the characters are — just how much they’re holding back. Irene keeps her head low so that she can hide under the brim of her hat as she hands a white woman something she’d dropped, so that the woman can only see this quirk with her lip, a sort of “survival apparatus,” smiling just enough so that the white woman doesn’t find her threatening but not enough so that she draws attention to herself. It’s heartbreaking.

I sometimes feel that the benefit of bringing historical fiction to the screen is that we can see these people who feel so far away in full color, as opposed to the grainy photographs in textbooks or our mothers’ keepsakes. However, Hall chose to shoot “Passing” in black and white. As I was watching, I felt that it was creating a comfortable distance between the viewer and the film, reminding us of our ignorance about untold stories, asking us to open our eyes and notice not the color of the potted plant but the shape it takes as it falls out of a window. Hall explained, “To make a film about colorism with the color drained out of it asks you to look at it as abstraction … You look at something in black and white and you accept it, but you’re undergoing a process of translation. Film isn’t black

and white, it’s gray. I think that appealed to me because I feel that this is a story of nuance and gray areas and ambiguity.” There’s this incredible effect that shows how differently Thompson’s skin appears in different lighting, sometimes making her appear darker or paler — just like the main characters’ class status, passing as white or Black is all about the environment around them. The camera lingers on mirrors upon mirrors in the wealthy homes Irene and Clare live and leisure in; wonderings about what they look like to other people and if they’re black or white or gray loom over their heads. When I was in high school, my literature teachers challenged us to view a story for what it is, to really, truly focus on the character rather

than ourselves — to not search for ways in which we’re the same or how the story could relate to modern-day, but listen to what it has to say about its specific time. “Passing” is an important historical record of the experience of wealthy Black people in the art scene, as well as the complexities of colorism just a few decades removed from the Civil War. But honestly, I’m glad that we can see this story for what it is in our current world. I hope Tessa Thompson thinks carefully about the opportunities she’s been given as a light-skinned woman, as “Hollywood’s acceptable version of a Black girl.” I hope movies like this convince my brother that we’re actually pretty lucky that our mom is white and that the tragic mulatto trope really is just a myth.

SUNDANCE 2021

‘In the Earth’ is the first good COVID-19 movie JACOB LUSK

Daily Arts Writer

SUDOKU 2

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

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Release Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021

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ACROSS 1 Playground game 4 Theatrical backdrops 10 Academic pds. 14 4-Down may be added to it 15 Tour 16 Prose-fixing job 17 Expert 18 Settlement for prisoners 20 Iberian river 22 Countless years 23 One with cinco dedos 24 Place to display tchotchkes 29 Die down, as a storm 30 Type 31 “What was __ think?” 32 High-level H.S. classes 34 Prefix with cycle 35 Linseed oil source 36 She voices Elsa in “Frozen” films 39 PC connections 41 Little rascal 42 “MASH” milieu: Abbr. 43 Slippery swimmer 44 Pre-1868 Tokyo 45 Like Stout’s Nero Wolfe 49 Approximately 247 acres 54 Govt. agency with an Informed Delivery service 55 Cry from a crib 56 Distant relative of the emu 57 Pocket money ... and what’s in the puzzle’s circles? 61 Supergirl’s symbol 62 Wheel cover 63 “That’s unnecessary” 64 GPS indication 65 Soap since 1965, familiarly 66 Like plans yet to be finalized 67 Grass in a roll

DOWN 1 Capital east of Denver 2 Site with many home pages? 3 Name spelled out in a Van Morrison song 4 “The Racer’s Edge” 5 Golf course hazard 6 Used as fuel 9 Classic fast-food 7 Donald Jr.’s mom sandwich since 8 Many-voiced Blanc 9 Capital WNW of Denver 10 Psalm instruction 11 Three-time “Modern Family” Emmy nominee 12 Company that merged with Konica 13 Oinker’s digs 19 Siberian city 28Eightsomes Building artisan 21 25 French military cap 26 French film s 27 “Hogan’s Heroes” colonel

28 Sly critter 33 Derogatory 34 Decision maker at home 35 “Show Boat” author 36 Apparent 37 Wild way to run 38 New way for many to meet 39 __ Moines 40 Giant redwood 44 Scots Gaelic

46 Old anesthetics 47 Makes sure of 48 Took off the board 50 Altar areas 51 Start of a demand 52 Bowling sites 53 “Well, shucks!” 57 Bygone Ford 58 Current events TV channel 59 “Woo-__!” 60 Savannah summer hrs.

ANSWER ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

02/03/21 01/28/21

By Fred Ohles ©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

WHISPER “Remember the fact that you have ribs.”

“Happy February!”

02/03/21

Almost a year into the pandemic and coronavirus-themed shows, flicks and literature have started to crop up. The early bird was that soapy soap opera “Love in the Time of Corona.” Now we’ve got bigger names but equal banalityinmovieslikeHBOMax’sheist film “Locked Down,” which featured a couple using the COVID-19 lockdown as an excuse to rob banks. These have largely been on-the-nose, low-hanging fruit — the media gunning for brownie points that we, the socially isolated and under-vaccinated public, are loath to distribute. And yet, it’s a little strange when the new fare we watch features bustling crowds of happy people, blissfully unaware that their immune systems are gloriously, divinely exposed. “In the Earth” strikes that balance. It’s a rainbow fish in a vapid viral sea, and we can only hope it starts to share its scales real damn quick. Neither“COVID”nor“coronavirus” are ever said, but “In the Earth” is very clearly set during the COVID-19 crisis, or in an otherwise comparable pandemic. They’ve got their masks, they’ve got their hand-sanitizing stations and talks of quarantine abound. One woman apologizes for having not talked to anyone in three months. Another guy lies to his doctor about how much he’s been exercising while isolating. “In the Earth” is completely a creature of the pandemic. The idea for the film was conceived on the first day of the U.K. lockdown. The film was shot during the summer months over 15 days, the first new British production since the crisis started. But, as writer-director-editor Ben Wheatley (“Rebecca”) was quick to point out in the post-premiere Q&A session, “In the Earth” is not about the pandemic — it’s a reflection of our times. Some traces of lockdown living — natural themes of isolation and its strain on interpersonal relationships — are indelibly imprinted on it, but the film stands on its own two legs. The stars of this micro-budget venture are small-time but guileful actors Joel Fry (“Love, Wedding, Repeat”) and Ellora Torchia (“Midsommar”). Fry plays Martin, a cute-as-a-button mycologist trekking into the fictional Arboreal Forest to pair up with fellow fungus scientist

Dr. Wendle (Hayley Squires, “In Fabric”) and study the mycorrhizal mat that suffuses the environment. Torchia plays the cigarettesmoking, coffee-swilling guide, the park ranger Alma. Their research station is a two-day sojourn through the woods — no bikes, no shuttles, no nada. “People get a little funny in the woods,” Martin’s doctor tells him. It’s easy to get lost in a two-day cross-country journey, and it doesn’t help that the locals tell of Parnag Fegg, some sort of woman of the woods or pagan monster or chthonic spirit or what have you that wanders the forest. You can see where this is going. And you’re wrong! It’s not going there. Or it kinda is. It does. But it goes other places too. “In the Earth” resists clear-cut categorization. Establishing shots feature verdant expanses of ferns and vine-choked gymnosperms but are accompanied by an arresting synth score by Clint Mansell. This contrast of the natural and electronic is emblematic of the film as a whole. While clearly a child of horror and British science fiction, it’s wont to blend the supernatural and sci-fi in a satisfying mélange that drips with the energy of a precocious pre-teen playing around in the forest with his Super 8. The film’s primary vehicle is that of slashery, “survive-alonein-the-woods” type horror — after an uneventful day in the woods, the immediate concern for Martin and Alma is an ax-wielding weirdo (played with razor-sharp skill by Reece Shearsmith, “High-Rise”) who likes photography. But the film’s second act takes a turn into the (visually and conceptually) psychedelic, an almost literally psilocybin-fueled flip that amalgamates folklore and sciencegone-wrong. As dazzling as that sounds, the latter half of the film is the weaker one. Once the science mumbo jumbo is introduced, it’s rapid fire. The relative emptiness of the characters becomes apparent: Martin is private and panicky, Alma is cool and capable and that’s that. But these are forgivable sins — this is a lean, spartan story that knows not the meaning of the words dilly nor dally. And it’s psychedelia — dazzling and a tad confusing is kind of the point.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 7

SUNDANCE 2021

‘Wild Indian’ is a win for Native American cinema, but falls short on storytelling ROSS LONDON Daily Arts Writer

Directed by Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. (“Shinaab”), a member of Wisconsin’s Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa, “Wild Indian” is a thoughtful film that tells a narrative about trauma and the experience of Native Americans but struggles to hit the mark. The film misses the resonant pitch needed to leave a lasting mark on the viewer. Corbine’s directorial debut leaves something to be desired, but the thematic and cultural content is undeniably rich and valuable. At the beginning of the film, a young Native boy named Makwa (Michael Greyeyes, “Blood Quantum”), abused by his father, turns to violence as a coping

mechanism. In a defining moment for Makwa and his cousin Ted-O (Chaske Spencer, “The Twilight Saga”), a schoolmate is murdered, and the two boys are marked by this trauma for the rest of their lives. Makwa moves to California and finds success as a businessman, changing his name to Michael, while Ted-O spends decades in and out of prison. When they encounter one another after a lifetime, that boyhood trauma is reenacted, in a way. Trauma is a central theme throughout — intergenerational trauma is an unfortunate fixture of Indigenous culture in America, and that motif supports the plot of the film. The incorporation of intergenerational trauma employs negative, often stereotyped portrayals of Native Americans as violent people with substance abuse issues. Whether or not this

sort of character is necessary to tell a story of intergenerational trauma is not immediately evident. Greyeyes addressed the subject during the Q&A session after the film: “For a long time, Hollywood portrayed us in grotesque ways …” Through this film, he was able to “reclaim and recontextualize that portrayal” of the ‘violent Indian.’ Greyeyes’s character is defined by a violent streak, a killing instinct kept below the surface, exercised from time to time in a controlled manner. This instinct, in the context of the film, reads as a sort of warrior complex. Rooted in childhood traumas, Makwa/ Michael’s sense of self is deeply marred by societal perspective and a sense of shame that borders on self-loathing.

In sharp contrast, Ted-O’s troubled life and time in prison belie his kindhearted nature and tremendous guilt. Whereas Makwa grew away from his home and past, turning to religion to mollify his own selfreproach, Ted-O has carried his regret as a silent onus for decades. Both boys went to Catholic school, where a priest told a group of students in a chapel that “a tortured spirit is an unworthy sacrifice before God.” This scene juxtaposes Makwa and Ted-O with Cain and Abel, a dichotomy that forms the film’s key conflict. However, the characters seem at times to be too symbolic, too dichotomous to convince the viewer. No man is so simple as to be consistently complex.

SUNDANCE 2021

‘Knocking’ tells a story all women know MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON Daily Arts Writer

There’s no horror like political horror, and “Knocking” is no exception. Director Frida Kempff’s (“Winter Buoy”) debut feature is a chilling exploration of mental health, trauma and misogyny. Molly, played by Cecilia Milocco (“The Circle”), has recently moved into a new apartment when she begins to hear a persistent — you guessed it — knocking. The film follows her as she attempts to solve the mystery of the noises in her ceiling. Is she the only one who can hear it? Is it real? Are people lying to her? Just as Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” spoke to class consciousness on a universal level, rest assured that watching “Knocking” in Swedish is no detriment to its ability to strike at bare-bones human fears. It’s not the most subtle message ever. Reading the synopsis on the Sundance website made me feel a little bit like it was created from an algorithm that found that the phrases “mental health” and “gaslighting” were getting the most clicks online. Then again, it’s not the most egregious thing ever either, and if misogyny isn’t subtle, then maybe art that talks about it doesn’t have to be either. In the director’s introduction that played shortly before the film started, Kempff simply said, “We knew that whatever choice we made, we had to be bold.”

TAURUS

With Venus now in your career zone, Taurus, it’s a very good time to make an excellent impression when it truly counts. Use this energy in job interview, or when seeking promotion or new clients. People will warm to you because your social skills and charm are now off the scale.

GEMINI Venus’ arrival in your travel zone is good news if you’re hoping for a romantic getaway, a honeymoon or even a holiday romance. If you are single, this influence can bring a strong attraction to someone from a different culture, country, or background to your own.

While I’ve never experienced the Sundance Film Festival before, in-person or remote, I was a bit wary about how “pure” the screening could be when I could just turn on my bedside lamp when I got too scared — and I got scared a good amount of times. So whether you’re looking for frights or social commentary, Kempff has you covered. But actually, I think watching this film at home enhanced the experience. Hearing my floorboards creak and my neighbors arguing with each other upstairs

made me feel like I was on one of those 4-D rides at the Detroit Zoo. You know, where they have a machine jerk your chair around so you feel like you’re riding a dinosaur? Watching “Knocking” when you’re a woman living alone during a pandemic is like a similarly budgeted, but higher quality, 4-D ride at the zoo. Some viewers might find its pacing frustrating, but if you lean into it, it’s actually one of its major strengths. At just 78 minutes long, you might think that it’d try to cram as much action as possible into its runtime, but its

LEO What’s not to love about Venus arriving in your love zone this week? With romance high on the agenda, you could experience lots of joyful moments, magical memories and sentimental sweetness.

self-restraint is admirable. I knew I was watching a horror movie, so I started out with my shoulders in my ears, just waiting for something awful to happen. Then it coaxed me into complacency as the beginning lull kept rolling, as Molly buys groceries, smokes cigarettes on her balcony and tries to cool off in a heatwave. It doesn’t rely on jump scares, instead letting the isolation and quiet slowly drive screws into your spine.

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PISCES

YOUR WEEKLY

It’s a largely calm and serene week, astrologically, and nobody will feel more centered and spiritually aware this week than you, Pisces. With gentle Venus now transiting this area of the Pisces chart, you’ll find peace and joy in meditation, daydreams, and mindfulness.

AQUARIUS

WHISPER “Judas the stray cat, if you're reading this please come inside the house. It's too cold.”

Venus’ arrival in your own sign of Aquarius is a boot to your self-esteem and your self confidence – and almost certainly to your love life too. This is a wonderful time to date someone new, as you will be able to be your authentic self on a date, instead of putting on a show.

CAPRICORN There should be some financial good news this week, Capricorn, with Venus moving into your money zone. However, Venus does love to spend, so be careful that any financial boost doesn’t evaporate almost as soon as it arrives!

“I’m kind of ready for the semester to end.”

CANCER This looks like a good week for forgiveness – and not just of others, Cancer. As Venus shifts into one of the most psychologically important zones of your chart, you will be able to view past hurts more objectively and less emotionally, making it easier for you to offer forgiveness to those who have wronged you.

Romeo and Juliet make a modern reappearance in ‘R#J’ Daily Arts Writer

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

SAGITTARIUS Your already strong natural charisma gets a real boost from the arrival of Venus in your communication zone this week. you can use this charm to your advantage as it will be easy for you to persuade people to back or support your ideas.

“Pinches and punches for the beginning of February.”

VIRGO Venus’ arrival in your everyday routines zone is a helpful reminder to give yourself a break every now and then, Virgo. This gentle influence can help to ease work stress, providing you with time and space to delegate or to ask for help where needed.

LIBRA Venus moves into your joy zone this week, which has to be good news in anyone’s book. This is a delightful, playful, flirtatious influence, which is excellent for dating someone new or for spicing up you loe life in an existing partnership.

SCORPIO Family life is top of you agenda this week, and with Venus moving into your family zone there is a comfortable, harmonious vibe around your home. It’s an excellent week for renovation or DIY projects, or anything that involves beautifying or improving your home.

Read your weekly horoscopes from astrology.tv

There is a valuable story in “Wild Indian,” but much is missing. The characters, though fully developed, are given a calculated depth that feels artificial upon reflection. Stereotypes abound in the film, to varying effect and impact. Could we do without the alcoholism of Makwa’s father? Would physical abuse, or even the implied effects of having such young parents (his mother was 13 and his father 18 when Makwa was born) have been sufficient? All told, “Wild Indian” starts an important conversation about the enduring hardships of Indigenous people in America. Unfortunately, the execution of this storytelling is flawed, and leaves the viewer wanting more. That said, Corbine certainly has more to say, and I imagine his future work will exceed and raise the standard set by his debut.

SUNDANCE 2021

EMILIA FERRANTE

ARIES Focus on your social cirlce this week, Aries, and on meeting people who share your ideals, objectives and outlook on life. It’s a very good week for socializing in genereal, but you may have little patience for people who challenge your worldview.

The story is an important one, and the film is a victory for Native American representation in cinema. However, despite thematic grandeur, one can tell this filmmaker is a novice. The dialogue occasionally feels contrived and certain visual tropes fail to elevate the film to great heights. In one of Corbine’s more successful artistic choices, the film is bookended by allegorical scenes from the past, of a Native man ill with smallpox, speaking to his mother. This more subtle allusion to intergenerational trauma and the many masks it wears throughout history is a valuable part of the film. Greyeyes also spoke about these scenes and the physical wounds suffered by his character throughout the film as literal embodiments of trauma.

Director Carey Williams (“Emergency”) makes his featurelength debut at Sundance this year with “R#J,” a bold reimagining of one of the most well-known love stories of all time, told entirely through social media. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet,” like many of his other plays, has a long and storied history of adaptations. Williams’s take on it uses Instagram, iMessage and Facebook to tell this story in an innovative way, switching from one character’s phone to another, with the audience tuning in to Instagram Lives and FaceTimes. The film feels simultaneously invasive — we see Romeo slide into Juliet’s DMs before they actually meet — and a little bit too familiar, as we are already spending ample time in our daily lives staring at exactly the kinds of screens replicated in the film. The most striking aspect of this film is, of course, the form it uses to tell the story. The form is both limiting, in that we cannot see personal, intimate moments between characters when there is no phone in sight, as well as creatively freeing because the film is able to introduce new elements of the characters. The filmmakers make the bold decision, for example, to have Romeo be a ‘dark-mode’ kind of person, while Juliet is a ‘light-mode’ type, giving the phone either a dark background or white background, respectively. This story invites us to make judgments about the characters based on something many viewers are already experts on: social media habits. Because of the very nature of social media, we are instantly able to place the characters into their online archetypes: Juliet, with her alt art account and a profile picture of her black Doc Martens with two differently colored shoelaces, and Romeo with his artfully curated softboy streetwear fashion feed. This film takes the classic school assignment of “modernizing” an English class staple, using fake social media to its extreme. This is every fake celebrity Facebook page or imagined feed of a fictional character fully realized, with both the budget and the creative and artistic talent required to do so. Because of its roots outside of traditional filmmaking, it feels cheesy and strained at times, but it manages to adequately achieve its goal of a coherent story told exclusively through social media. The format takes some getting used to, and sometimes it is still shocking to see certain events played out on screen. Juliet’s very public suicide and Mercutio being murdered on Instagram live seem shocking until you realize that these events merely represent a fantastical mirror of exactly what our world is like now. We see real violence, unedited and raw, straight from strangers’ phone cameras to our own devices. Seeing it in an actual film is upsetting, especially because the reason it is so impactful is that it’s familiar. Romeo, played by Black actor Camaron Engels (“American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules”), watches Mercutio (Siddiq Saunderson, “Messiah”), also played by a Black man, die in real-time on FaceTime. The country watched George Floyd die at the hands of the police in a video shot on a cell phone, in much the same way “R#J” presents its violence. Aside from its novel format, the film also breaks new ground by

having an almost entirely POC cast. The Montagues are played by Black actors and actresses, and the Capulets are played by Latinx talent. “Up to this point the status quo has just been white people, blonde and blue-eyed,” Juliet actress Francesca Noel (“Selah and the Spades”) said in the post-screening Q&A session. “It’s revolutionary, but it’s also just the way the world is.” Other members of the cast concurred. “As a person who does love Shakespeare, I think that Shakespeare is a beautiful poet, a beautiful artist, a beautiful author,” said self-proclaimed Shakespeare nerd Engels. “I think a lot of people shy away from (Shakespeare’s works) … especially as a Black youth.” Perhaps Saunderson, who played Mercutio, said it best: “It needed to be flipped on its head, it needed a new life, with some new color.” Carey Williams thought of this film as a “mashup” of modern and Shakespearean language, which was perhaps the most impressive part of the film, although it, too, was a bit confusing at first. “I knew early on that I wanted to preserve the original text, but I wanted to put that into modern day,” said Williams. Essentially, the characters use 21st-century slang in their texts and posts, but almost all spoken language is more or less the original Shakespeare. In this way, “R#J” carries on the long tradition of updating Shakespearean literature for the modern times. It manages to incorporate the beauty of Shakespeare’s original lines while also including current vernacular in a way that shows the incredible perseverance of Shakespeare’s storytelling. In addition, music is an absolutely integral part of this movie. “One thing I thought about early on was that this format was going to need music to carry it,” said Williams. “It’s going to need that soundtrack to pull it through.” Juliet listens to Clairo and FKA twigs; Romeo listens to Snoop Dogg. The music helps emphasize the fact that the characters are really just teenagers, something other adaptations sometimes forget. One telling example is when Juliet rebels against her father and posts a photo of her with Romeo. Her father calls her, and she ignores the call, instead turning up her music. “I was really focused on finding this hormonal, messy, tumultuous teenager who was really vulnerable and falling in love for the first time,” said Noel. Despite its valiant effort to make a Shakespeare adaptation that is fresh, current and relevant, the film seems like it will be dated once the next Instagram or iOS update arrives. The interfaces of these apps we use everyday change, and since we use them every day, we get used to the graphics and aesthetics of these apps very quickly. However, this also means that graphics that fall behind the curve — which could take only a few months — instantly feel dated and out of touch. The point of the movie is that it is exactly in the current moment, and while it captures that moment as best as it can with its format, it is also going to be practically unintelligible to teens of the next generation. The staying power of this movie can really only be determined with time — either its graphics will age it into oblivion fairly quickly, or its classic Shakespearean backbone and the innovativeness of its form will allow it to remain relevant in the cultural psyche.

Michigan in Color

8 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Reflecting on the “Nth Room” Case: Why South Korea needs a new feminist wave RACHAEL KONG MiC Columnist

*Content warning: this piece discusses sex trafficking and sexual violence* COVID-19 wasn’t the only nightmare South Korea was dealing with last March. Going viral in late March 2020 was the “Nth Room,” a sexual crime operation where women — and underage girls — were blackmailed into sexual slavery. These young girls, often looking for ways to help alleviate their financial burden, were recruited by trafficking operators to complete seemingly harmless and miscellaneous jobs or assignments, and attend conditional meetings with their alleged “sponsors” who would send them money in exchange for these deeds. These interactions initially occurred on social media services like Twitter

before conversations were moved to Telegram— an encrypted messaging app. Here, the recruiters asked for the victims’ personal information, such as their names, bank account numbers and home addresses, claiming it was needed to deposit money to their accounts. The operators took this information and proceeded to stalk, blackmail and physically abuse these women — and order them to do such to themselves on video, via blackmail. All of these exploitative videos were then distributed by chatroom operators on Telegram to viewers who had made cryptocurrency transactions. Because the administrative user created eight groups on Telegram using ordinal numbers (i.e., 1st room, 2nd room, etc.), the sexual crime case became known to the public as the “Nth Room” Case. Around 260,000 users were found in association with the “Nth Room” and the more these viewers paid, the more degrading the content they received. The clips

distributed went well beyond the nudity of these women; the women were forced to commit violent and extreme acts such as carving the word “slave” onto their bodies with a knife or harming their genitals. Politicians justified the participation of the 260,000 users. Congressman Jeong Jeom-sik remarked that viewers “enjoy these videos alone for self-satisfaction, so are we going to punish them for that?” The South Korean Attorney General Kim Oh-Soo blamed the girls, claiming that “It’s normal for teens to fool around on the computer,” dismissing their criminality. They weren’t the only politicians to express such tone-deaf thoughts. The general public was horrified. Over 2.7 million people in Korea have signed a Blue House Presidential Petition—a national system of political concern expressed via petition to the government and Blue House officials — requesting that the government

Reflections on Motherhood SARAH AKAABOUNE MiC Columnist

*Writer’s Note: I feel as if this is definitively the last piece I will ever write about grappling with my brother’s illness as it’s time to make peace. I believe its final resting place is here at The Michigan Daily where it will be afforded the dignity of being heard by my editors. It will be read by my friends Siri and Duaa C. and my mother who dutifully give love to every single piece I write. And for that I am grateful. I am 16 years old when I decide that I will not be a mother. I am not entirely certain I will ever possess the qualities needed to be one and, more so, because I understand motherhood: what it means to be a mother and to unequivocally love a child so much so that the life they lead becomes your own. And I have thought often about this love, a mother’s love, a love so muddy and tangled, a love that knows no creed or consequence, a love so invariably tangible it renders itself immune to any sort of concentrated definability. It’s quite unlike high school sweetheart love or puppy dog love, man and car love or backyard garden love. Because it is a love that isn’t taught or learned, a love that asks of no qualification or merit, a love that isn’t newly discovered after 3 months of night classes at the local community college or mastery of Symphony No. 40 in A minor on the old piano from a pawn shop in West Lafayette, Ind., that was destined to never be played again. Rather, it is unquestioning, unflinching love, routine and expected, visceral, like the neighborhood cat named Max that visits every Thursday to smell the peonies without fail, or the man in the moon. And because of its enigmatic nature, I’d like to think that a mother’s love manifests in the most arbitrary yet meaningful of ways. It is wet bedsheets and burnt toast; bunnyeared shoelaces and I-LoveYous whispered into concrete; handmade ceramic mugs from art class that leak coffee, tea, lemonade and perpetually slant to the right; cherry pits spat into grass; a pinky stuck to the ring finger with peanut butter; angry phone calls about overdue books from Julie Lancaster at the public library; and sometimes it’s “Childhood Brain & Spinal Cord Tumors: A Guide for Family, Friends & Caregivers” on the kitchen table and inkyblue questions on how to love a terminally ill child. And I know because I’ve seen it in my own mother. In a hospital, my mother is my brother’s first. She is Ryan’s mother. Ryan’s mother who knows his height and weight.

HANNAH NGUYEN MiC Senior Editor

New year, new me: a common phrase used to signify growth, or at least the desire for it. The New Year brings the opportunity for everyone to work on themselves, whether that means working on their physical health, their mentality, their spirituality, etc. In 2020, we collectively saw many signs pointing to the urgent need for change following the discovery of COVID-

Ryan’s mother who knows his exact time and date of birth. Ryan’s mother who knows he prefers rooms that don’t overlook Forest Hill Cemetery and rooms with the TV remote attached to an elastic cord and nurses that angle their elbows just right when injecting Morphine, Vicodin, Vincristine. She is Ryan’s mother who knows other things too, like how meltdowns on the first day of kindergarten, overturned chairs and crayons snapped half, slurred speech, crossed eyes, monogrammed notes from other mothers with suggestions for expulsion and words like bully and disruption-to-the-class, headaches so bad he flailed and thrashed on the kitchen floor in pain, were the doing of a brain tumor in his cerebral cortex. And more so, she is Ryan’s mother who knew before anyone else, before Dr. Green and Dr. Campbell, before Dr. Schafer-Shapiro and Dr. Reddy, before nurse practitioner Jackie, before my father, before me. And perhaps it’s because only mothers are well versed in these sorts of matters. My brother had brain cancer at 6 years old, though mind you, cancer is the special sort of illness that never leaves, it burrows under the skin and fingernails, in the tongues of shoes, behind doorknobs and in back pockets, in bubbles in the honey jar and corduroys left to dry, and it took my brother’s mind and my mother’s soul and my father’s heart with it and gave back love and loss and shattered glass and rust. And being a mother to a son like my brother redefines motherhood, strips it bare and raw, flays it open on bathroom tile and unpins, untucks, unties, reduces it to its most carnal form, so that motherhood becomes wiping vomit off the Chinese buffet floor, after the fourth, the fifth, the sixth round of chemotherapy and life becomes staggered. Staggered around dates like Sept. 16, and Oct. 12, and Nov. 6. Dates for blood transfusions and appointments where the doctor talks too fast and the mind is too slow. And mostly, motherhood becomes acquainted with a certain kind of grief. One far different from tears cried over spilled milk, or the death of the goldfish won at the state fair after a three-month stint in a plastic aquarium, or over fractured wedding china after the movers rough-handle the box labeled fragile. Rather, it’s the kind of grief that wraps under and around the lungs, presses hard down on the chest so that the ribs begin to strain and crack, and even one breath becomes the most arduous task, it’s the kind of grief that hollows into the pit of the stomach and chips away

19, one of them being discrimination towards Asian people. As many are aware, COVID-19 brought along more than just sickness. It brought relentless xenophobic “jokes,” hate crimes and violence towards East Asians, especially since it was enabled by public figures like Donald Trump. Phrases like “At least I don’t eat bats,” and terms like “kungflu” became much more commonly used in the everyday American language. These offensive comments and actions have persisted because of a historic denial of inherent racism

at the lining, leaving marred holes, so that breakfast and acid leak into the body and sometimes it flashes so red hot it burns the heart. It is heavy and felt, thick and viscous, and it covers the floor, and the walls, and the windows, and the loose spaces behind the baseboards, trapping flies and moths, wishes made on shooting stars and the balls of feet, Get-Well-Soon cards and plastic forks with the prongs broken off. And it’s the kind of grief that only Rajia in Room 26 –– whose baby I held until his heart gave out –– knows; and Dominic Jackson’s mother –– whose son lost so much blood it stained the bedsheets clean through, splattering shoes, pooling out into the hall so that the nurses’ station shut down for the afternoon –– knows; and the kind of grief that only my oldest friend Asha –– who lost her own mother to cancer –– knows; it’s the kind of grief that only my mother knows, the kind of grief that only I know. And above all, it’s the kind of grief that pushes people away, so that the phone calls and pity playdates stop coming, and aunts and uncles and family friends go on vacations to Northern Michigan or the beach instead. The hospital room begins to thin out and the neighborhood mothers don’t visit, and maybe it’s because they cannot and will never understand that in that room, motherhood becomes ashes and sweat and watching your son die. And in a hospital room, when you are all that you have left in this world, there comes a certain sort of reckoning, a grappling with mortality. I have seen my brother choke and gasp for air until he turned blue, watched him seize and scream and bleed. I have seen my mother and father cry, felt my spine take on weight, and more than anything else, looked death square in the eye and watched it tug and pull at my brother’s throat, bounce of the walls and ceiling, knock into the light fixture, leave irremovable dents in plaster and violent angry purple splatters that never seemed to fade. Should the tumor ever choose to grow again, my brother will surely die and he will take my mother with him, and this time it will not grant me the grace of God, mercy or tact, love or care, and by that virtue, perhaps my greatest fear is not my own death, but rather my brother’s. For what is a sister without a brother or a mother without a son.

reveal the identities of the traffickers and the viewers, which challenged the country’s norm of protecting criminal anonymity. Afterwards, 24-year-old Cho Joo-bin was identified as one of the chatroom administrators in late March, while evidence in mid-April revealed 18-year-old Kang Hoon as an underage accomplice. There’s also another petition where over 2 million people have requested that all 260,000 viewers’ identities be revealed. But this isn’t enough: Korea must finally reflect upon its normalization of female objectification, which was made evident in the handling of the “Nth Room” Case. As a Korean girl who moved to America in 2010, I was ashamed of my motherland; these appalling comments from Korea’s political leaders only reminded me of the difference in progress between the modern American and Korean feminist movements. Unlike the more progressive Western feminist agenda,

the extradition request by the U.S. in August 2020. Without harsher sentencing, how will perpetrators come to understand the severity of their crimes? How will victims get justice? Until then, victims will never feel encouraged to share their stories. Furthermore, Korea should change its outlook on sex, which is still a taboo topic. Korea is a sexually repressive country; porn is banned, and the topic of sex is rarely discussed by families, schools or even the media. In order to change its attitude towards sexuality, Korea needs to improve its sexual education programs in schools and normalize discussions about sex for students. In cultures where sex is taboo, people may repress their normal sexual urges so much so that it festers into something worse.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

You’ve Made Your Views Clear, Now It’s My Turn MARIA PATTON MiC Columnist

On Jan. 6, you planned and executed an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. You wore shirts with slogans and logos threatening to further divide an already violently divided nation. You fought against, and threw a fire extinguisher at police officers, while flying the symbol you claim represents that their lives matter. You carried the American flag, while you threatened legislators that were trying to defend the freedom and democracy the flag represents. You stole mail, a computer and a podium. You broke windows and ripped apart signs of the People’s House. You destroyed the offices of elected officials — and for what? To prove a point? Because you don’t agree with the results of the election? We’ve been through this before, too many times. For centuries, white supremacists have voiced their hatred and power by claiming they are defending the American flag, while in reality they are disgracing it. That disrespect is blatantly hung over our heads in the form of the Confederate flag, the ultimate un-American symbol, to counter every plea for human rights. It was clear when you held that flag while

strolling through the halls of the Capitol, that the only thing you were trying to defend was your racism. Since you have made your emotions so violently clear, I’m going to talk about how I feel, and you are going to listen. I’ve gone through so many emotions since that day. I’ve been disappointed even though I’ve learned to expect nothing less from America. I’ve laughed this situation off because I’ve become so desensitized to the trials of living in this country. I have had moments of confusion trying to figure out how this whole situation happened, but I am quickly brought back to reality when I acknowledge that these kinds of actions are in fact American, even though politicians and some in the mainstream media say it isn’t. I’m frustrated because Black people are killed just for existing. When we peacefully protest, we are arrested, tear-gassed and hit with rubber bullets. You walk into the Capitol with guns while threatening to hang the vice president, and get to pose for pictures with police officers. I feel hopeless because I’m constantly given proof of why I should be afraid of the country I live in. I never knew how far you would take it, but on Jan. 6, you made it clear just how far you are willing to go. I’m crushed because it seems like so much work has been

done to try and make America a welcoming place for everyone, but the cries for justice go in one ear and out the other, and are constantly dismissed and ridiculed by the very people who need to hear them. How can this hatred be so customary that you are willing to lose your lives and risk those of others? Why are human rights a political topic that we have to fight for over and over again? Every time we take one step forward, we fall ten steps back. How can we expect anything to change, when you –– and those I once thought I could trust amongst you –– are fighting to uphold racism, sexism and countless other harmful principles that are causing people to unfairly lose their lives? This shouldn’t be a problem. But it is. Seeing how violently divided the country is, it’s clear that you believe these disgusting ideas wholeheartedly. What will it take to show you that your beliefs are harmful? Why don’t you understand that white lives have never been at stake? White lives won’t be sacrificed with the results of this election. But everytime you suit up in your MAGA gear and take out your rifle, the lives of marginalized communities around you are at stake. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it?

Make giving back the law SYEDA RIZVI MiC Columnist

Warren Buffett has a net worth of $73.5 billion. Jeff Bezos’ has one of $179 billion, Bill Gates has one of $111 billion and Mark Zuckerberg has one of $85 billion. If each of these individuals gave only 2% of their income to charity, that would be more than $28 billion raised. That could be used towards overlooked domestic issues like homelessness, poverty and water sanitation. This absurd amount of money is confined to only four people. Imagine, America, if the top five percent of earners, those who make more than $309,348 annually, were mandated to donate 2% of their income to the government that would be allocated towards improving the poverty rate. Everyone must pay taxes, but the top 5% of earners should give an extra 2% that should be used specifically for improving domestic destitution. It’s time for Americans to take responsibility for giving back to their community — an effort I believe should be mandated by law. It’s clear that many people with an excessive amount of wealth loathe to donate much of their money. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s wealthiest individuals

New year, old jokes

towards Asian-Americans. The “model minority” myth, created by white America to uphold a racial hierarchy by pitting minorities against each other, plays an inherent role in anti-Asian racism, creating great resentment against Asians who are depicted as able to achieve economic success and the soughtafter “American Dream.” In a Time Magazine article, author Viet Thanh Nguyen explains that this “model minority” mindset sets the AsianAmerican community apart from other marginalized groups because

I’ve found that Korea’s deep-rooted history of Confucian values are often a justification for the subjugation of women. It’s offensive that Korean law doesn’t acknowledge child pornography as sexual abuse or exploitation, but rather as illegallyproduced films. Korean law is too lenient on all sexual crimes, which explains the proliferation of digital sex crimes, such as spy cam pornography and cyberbullying. Compared to sentencing in the U.S. for sex offenders that’s roughly 10 to 30 years in prison, sentencing for sex offenders in Korea is a slap in the face, as those who possess child pornography can only get jailed up to a year or pay a fine of 20 million won ($18,111.68). In 2018, Son Jungwoo received a mere 18-month sentence for operating one of the world’s largest child pornography sites, and South Korea even denied

compared to those communities, some Asian Americans receive more benefits from American capitalism. The “model minority” concept is problematic because it creates a hierarchy that allows for the normalization of anti-Asian racism. When an Asian person doesn’t fulfill the standards perpetuated by this mindset, such as the idea that they are studious or they play certain instruments, they are invariably deemed “less Asian.” Being “less Asian” denotes that they are whitewashed, not as involved in their ethnic

chipped in with less than 0.1% (combined) of their money for relief. Jeff Bezos donated around $125 million. To us, that sounds like a huge contribution, but when proportioned to his amassed wealth, it equates to approximately $85 for the average American worker. It should be an expectation that when you have such excess of wealth, at least 2% should be spent towards supporting people living below the poverty line. This would ensure that society’s wealth circulates, and that the rich do not become excessively rich while the poor do not become excessively poorer, working to eradicate wealthy America’s hoarding problem. Bezos himself is the perfect example when it comes to discussing the system of how the rich continue to progress even as the poor continue to struggle. In the duration of this pandemic, Bezos saw his wealth increase by approximately $48 billion. In the third quarter of 2020, the top 1% owned 31% of the country’s wealth. If giving back were mandated under the law, the amount of money collected can be put towards more practical domestic predicaments, which society believes would take hundreds of billions of dollars to eradicate. After all, according to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development,

eradicating homelessness would cost around $20 billion –– slightly less than the amount of money Americans spend each year on Christmas decorations alone. We have become so accustomed to living in a country with problems that should not exist in the first place. Many of our domestic issues are just considered part of the norm. For instance, when we think about homelessness, we all acknowledge it. But we don’t reflect on what America would be like if the entire issue was eliminated. However, the answers to these problems are within our reach, far from being impossible. It seems impractical, yes, but solutions exist. In comparison to other countries, America is far behind when it comes to improving the lives of citizens in poverty. Take Finland, for example. Through Finland’s Housing First effort, the country has managed to eradicate nearly all homelessness. If we take the collective sum of everyone’s monetary contributions, Americans could be the leaders of social improvement. If America’s billionaires are not charitable by nature, it should be acceptable to everyone else that America can begin to take steps forward towards making progressive change, even if it means forcing billionaires to open their giant pockets.

communities or just an ABG (Asian baby girl/gangster) or ABB (Asian baby boy). Not only does this rhetoric harm the Asian community, but it also fails to consider the barriers that limit other minorities, further driving the wedge between them and Asians. 2020 brought rhetoric that largely placed COVID-19’s blame on Asians, escalating racist remarks to threats like, “Run them over,” or “We’re going to kill you” With COVID-19’s tenacious presence, persisting long after it was predicted to, the Asian community begs the question of

whether or not there will be change in the society they interact with, or if the hate will be maintained with or beyond the virus. As long as these racist rhetoric and actions are the basis of how to treat Asian Americans, the “new me” that people hope for in 2021 should include growth in the ways they act and what they say. Make it: “New year, educated me.” (To learn about a new government action being taken to combat this racism, check out President Joe Biden’s recent directive.)

Opinion

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 9

JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMNIST

Michigan Law’s administration offers little compassion in a pandemic

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ILANA MERMELSTEIN | COLUMNIST

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The B.1.1.7 variant is no joke

t least 14 cases of the new U.K. variant of COVID-19, or the B.1.1.7 variant, have been identified in Washtenaw County and tied to the University of Michigan campus. While there is conflicting evidence on the mortality rate of this new strain, we know definitively that the B.1.1.7 variant is more contagious. This means that even if the new variant has the same mortality rate as the original COVID-19 virus, more people will die, simply because it spreads faster. Because of this, the B.1.1.7 variant being present at the University poses a major threat to the Ann Arbor community. It is vital that we see the reality and gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic and remain hypervigilant to protect ourselves and those around us. The B.1.1.7 variant of the COVID-19 virus was first identified in the U.K. in December 2020 and quickly became the primary variant of the virus present in England. Since then, multiple cases have been discovered in Washtenaw County. The Washtenaw County Health Department encouraged those who visited either the Meijer on Ann Arbor-Saline Road between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. or Briarwood Mall between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Jan. 17 to get tested for COVID-19 due to possible exposure. Most recently, the University paused athletics as a result of multiple student-athletes testing positive for the B.1.1.7 variant. Already, we have seen the impa scts of the higher level of contagion found in this version of the virus, and this is only the beginning. Even more concerning, the Food and Drug Administration indicates that the B.1.1.7 variant can trigger false negatives in test results more frequently than the original virus, so, while getting tested frequently is important, test results cannot be used to excuse unsafe behavior. This variant demands more from us in terms of safety precautions than

the original version of the COVID19 virus. Greater precautions are necessary now, with the B.1.1.7 variant present on campus, but it is no secret that greater precautions have also been necessary at the University since the beginning of the fall term. The University’s response to the COVID19 pandemic was notoriously lacking last semester, prompting pushback from the Graduate Employees’ Organization, many students and members of the greater Ann Arbor community. In announcing the fall 2020 plan, Michigan’s administration promised symptom screening and testing. While symptom screening was available in the form of ResponsiBlue, an app that asked users if they had any symptoms, students were rarely required to present the screen indicating they had completed the survey when they entered campus buildings, rendering the program mostly ineffective. Though available at the University, testing was offered mainly to symptomatic individuals and those who had been contacttraced, leaving the asymptomatic population high and dry. They only allowed all asymptomatic individuals to get tested before returning home for Thanksgiving. The University introduced the voluntary Community Sampling and Tracking Program at the beginning of September 2020 to allow for more asymptomatic testing, but only a limited number of participants were chosen to be tested each week, and not all who registered were guaranteed to be tested at any point in the semester. The underwhelming response to the COVID-19 pandemic was tied to multiple outbreaks in residence halls, and the University accordingly canceled most undergraduate students’ housing contracts for the winter semester. It seems as though the negative feedback about

the University’s proceedings last term was finally received, as the precautions in place this semester are much more appropriate given the state of the pandemic. The University now requires students living in residence halls, working at the University or using campus facilities to be tested weekly, and the revamped Community Testing and Sampling Program also provides students with the opportunity to be tested more frequently if they choose to do so. Residence halls are now operating at reduced capacity, with all students living in single rooms. However, the University can only do so much. Many students living off-campus disregarded the pandemic last semester, continuing to attend large gatherings and interact with people outside their homes, many times without masks. As of now, it seems that this behavior has not changed. With Fraternity & Sorority Life organizations recruiting and initiating new members, students have been seen in large groups, unmasked, at various off-campus houses. Though the University has responded to the increased threat of the new variant with more rigorous precautions, the student body seemingly has not, giving rise to greater concern. It was always important for us to take COVID-19 seriously, but now more than ever, we need to buckle down and do the right thing. With the new variant being present in our community and being significantly more transmissible as the original COVID-19 virus strain, we must finally wake up to the reality of this pandemic and act accordingly.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Ilana Mermelstein can be reached at imerm@umich.edu.

t’s safe to say that the fall 2020 semester was tough for many undergraduate students, but for many University of Michigan Law students, it was downright hellish. In addition to eliminating Fall Break, the Law School also added weekend classes for the fall semester. Unlike the rest of the University, which held classes online after Thanksgiving break, the law school condensed its schedule by holding its last class the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The compressed schedule — as explained in a Jul. 1 email from the associate dean for academic programming, Gil Seinfeld, to the Law School community — was made in response to moving the school’s Early Interview Week. EIW typically occurs in the summer and is when many second-year law students interview for summer associateships at law firms. Due to the pandemic, EIW was pushed to January 2021. Compressing the Fall 2020 schedule was meant to allow grades to come out before the interviewing process. Seinfeld acknowledged that the new schedule would be challenging. “All things considered however, this seems the best way to balance the competing needs of our student body,” he wrote. Third-year Law School student Julia Adams disagreed. She argued that the school year could have started a week earlier — an approach adopted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State. Or professors could have been asked to grade a little bit faster this year. The school should have “put the onus on the people being paid,” Adams said, instead of putting students on the “chopping block.” Certainly, organizing a brutal schedule in an already brutal year seems, well, brutal. The organization of the term around EIW also showed Adams, a public interest law student who will not be joining a corporate law firm, that the administration did not care about “non-firm” students. The interviewing process for public interest jobs is less regulated — Adams had eleven interviews in one week. Third-year Law School student Sean Brennan was incensed by the “lack of clear pathways for student input” before the fall term schedule was announced. A student-produced survey, garnering nearly 300 responses and representing a wide swath of the Law School student body, found 89% of students agreed

Alex Cohen/Daily

with the statement, “I am worried about my mental health.” In addition, 90% agreed that “the law school has not done enough to support students this semester.” Perhaps the Law School could have eliminated some of the student distress by allowing students facing greater personal or mental health challenges than normal to take a leave of absence. Alas, third-year Law School student Everett Secor tried to do just that and felt led to believe by Lindsey Stetson, the associate dean for student life, that he may risk losing not only his scholarship, but also his enrollment. To Secor, it seemed that short of a hospitalization, the school would not allow him to take leave. To him, that decision underscored the school’s commitment to their bottom line over student wellbeing. Stetson wrote in an email to The Daily that the decision to take leave is “highly personal” and that “we help students to assess their options and make the decision that is right for them.” The school’s leave of absence policy is vague, but does not outline any circumstances in which a leave would be denied or students would be forced to reapply after a one-year leave period. The policy explicitly states that students must complete their degree within five years — the typical timeline is three years, thus allowing plenty of time for a leave. Simultaneously infantilizing students by removing their ability to make decisions based on their own personal circumstances whilst expecting them to endure an even more arduous semester than usual in the midst of a global pandemic is cruel. Law school is taxing on student mental health in the best of times — its singular embedded CAPS counselor is not enough. Even after a Law School student died by suicide in 2019, there was no meaningful action taken to address mental health within the

Law School student body. To both Adams and Brennan, repeated suggestions from the school about yoga and CAPS felt insulting in the face of more structural issues facing students. After much student advocacy in October 2020, the Law School did make some small changes. Students were given the option to change one grade of a C or higher in both the fall 2020 and winter 2021 term to a “P.” The exam period was also extended, pushed from ending on Dec. 11 to Dec. 14, with professors encouraged to allow students to take their exams at any time within that period. However, Brennan pointed out that the changes only came about after intense student advocacy that seemed to him at times like “trauma porn,” where students felt they had to go into detail about their personal mental health or difficult family circumstances. The Law School could have mitigated a lot of the severe distress felt by students this past semester by simply listening. Input should have been widely solicited when redesigning the fall term schedule. Students who recognized that that law school would not be their top priority in the middle of a pandemic should have been supported in taking a leave of absence. In many ways, the refusal to listen parallels so many of the University’s mistakes in the past year. How much illness could have been avoided, for example, if the administration had listened to their own graduate students when they went on strike? How many women would have been spared if the University took sexual misconduct allegations seriously? When administrators fail to listen to students, it is almost always the students that get hurt. Perhaps that is why they never learn. Jessie Mitchell can be reached at jessiemi@umich.edu.

MRINALINI IYER | COLUMNIST

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What we owe to each other: an open letter to partiers

thought living in a sorority house was going to be exactly like the opening scene of “Legally Blonde”: girls braiding each other’s hair, sleepovers in the living room and everyone helping a girl get ready for a date. Obviously, because of the pandemic we are currently living through, things look a little different in my house. Masks are worn everywhere, there are limits to when we can use certain rooms and people tend to keep their distance. Sometimes I do miss playing pong in a basement that has some strange liquid dripping down the walls and making friends with people in bathrooms lacking toilet paper just as much as the next girl. The pandemic has robbed all of us of experiences that can never be replaced, and the impulse to go out and party is often very strong. But I have a very good reason to resist these impulses: I’m from Ann Arbor. I was born and raised in this quaint little town. I know it for warm summers on the Huron River and weekends spent at the Hands-On Museum. I learned to drive downtown, navigating the perpetual construction and taking back alleys and detours that led nowhere. And yes, Ann Arbor is primarily known for the University of Michigan, but it has always been so much more. It’s a town where people are unreasonably friendly, where nights at Top of the Park are practically a high school reunion, where liberal soccer moms can always find a gluten-free option, where there is a

tangible pride in the air on late July nights. Sorority rush this past weekend has shown me that this pride truly radiates throughout campus. These freshmen, who have had the most abnormal Michigan experience, still talk of their pride in their school. This isn’t because of the University. With no in-person classes, a shortened dorm experience and no game days to revel in our renowned school spirit, this pride in our school must come from somewhere else: the city itself. Ann Arbor natives are proud of this school and of their town, and it shows. Over four-fifths of Michigan football’s season ticket holders are non-students, coming to campus each gameday and flooding the Big House. School spirit radiates through campus and is echoed throughout the streets of this small town. Even now, my neighbors gather on their patio every football Saturday to tailgate and watch the game as a community. However, students at the University have been harming the Ann Arbor community this year. Underground frat parties, ill-conceived social gatherings and oh-so-elusive Tinder hookups have contributed to the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Washtenaw County. The University’s cases represented 60% of the county’s cases in mid-October, despite representing less than 15% of the county’s population. The Starbucks baristas and bus drivers that once smiled at our maize-

Design by Maggie Wiebe

colored sweatshirts now roll their eyes, wishing we weren’t around. College students, you owe it to Ann Arbor to be better. This town, no matter how long you’ve been here, has given you a place to call home. The rent may be sky high and South U may never be truly open again, but Ann Arbor has given you friends, pizza and far too many bubble tea places for any one person to try. It is a community of people passionate

about changing the world in their own unique ways, which is what drew so many students here in the first place. It used to be our secret pride. Now, it’s honestly embarrassing to tell family and friends about my school. My stories are now met only with worried glances and timid questions of safety. I am ashamed of the “Leaders and the Best” who want so badly to get wasted on a Friday

night that they can’t help but do so and risk other people’s lives. These are the lives of my community members. This is my home. Ann Arborites have poured their unwavering love and support into the University for almost two centuries. The least we can do is return the favor. Thus, I end my letter with a simple plea. Next Friday, when the Law Quad crows are beginning their nightly journey toward the medical

campus, put on your cutest outfit and FaceTime your best friend. Watch “Twilight” or “The Kissing Booth” or any other absurdly bad teen movie and invent your own drinking game. While this may not compare to the fun of pong on a porch, it might ensure that one more grandparent can join their family at the stadium next year. Mrinalini Iyer can be reached at iyermili@umich.edu.

Opinion

10 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

LYDIA STORELLA | COLUMNIST

Twitter and the First Amendment

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he Republican reaction to Twitter’s decision to permanently ban former President Donald Trump is emblematic of today’s Republican Party: hypocritical and purposefully misleading. Claiming that it’s unconstitutional for Twitter, a private company, to ban Trump from their platform grossly misinterprets what the First Amendment says plainly: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” The key word in the First Amendment that often gets overlooked is Congress. The First Amendment is supposed to protect us — the people — from the government. It is not meant to protect us from the social consequences that may arise because of our speech. It is not possible for private companies to violate the First Amendment. Republicans, while claiming to be the party of the Constitution, are lying to the American people — some of whom now believe that a private company is liable under the First Amendment. This goes beyond Twitter banning Trump. Simon & Schuster, a publishing company, announced it was canceling Sen. Josh Hawley’s, R-Mo., book publication for his role in the attempt to overturn the election results. Hawley responded by saying that the situation was “a direct assault on the First Amendment.” Hawley is a constitutional lawyer who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. He knows that a private company cannot “assault” the First Amendment. Hawley, Trump and other Republicans who are well-

versed in the true meaning of the First Amendment are exploiting the political polarization of today to give themselves more political power at the expense of the United States and its citizens. Simon & Schuster and Twitter — as well as the other social media companies that deplatformed Trump — are not government entities, and thus cannot be held accountable under the First Amendment. Trump broke its terms of service, giving Twitter every right to ban him and preventing a viable lawsuit from taking place. Hawley engaged in behavior that Simon & Schuster didn’t want associated with their brand. The Constitution does not guarantee Americans a right to a Twitter account or a book deal. Rather than a disagreement over policy or values, American political discourse has transcended to disagreement over fact perpetuated by purposeful lies. Republicans are telling their voters, and all Americans, things that are simply not true. The most prominent lie is that President Joe Biden is not the rightful president and that Trump lost due to rampant voter fraud, which led to an insurrection at the Capitol in January and continues to threaten our democracy. One solution is to prevent the spread of this dangerous information through sources that anyone can access, like social media sites. These platforms play a central role in our daily lives, which necessitates their proactivity rather than retroactivity. Twitter was right to ban Trump. He has been tweeting falsehoods

for months, which dramatically increased in number and destructiveness since the election in November — culminating when he was removed from Twitter after the events in January. But while the actions taken by social media companies to ban Trump and purge other misinformation from their sites was the right action to take, it is possible that beginning to take serious action against misinformation in 2021 is too little, too late. The repercussions of waiting to curtail the spread of misinformation could have serious consequences all over the world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny have both expressed concern about free speech in the wake of a private company banning such a prominent figure in world politics. Their arguments have merit and demonstrate how dangerous it was for tech companies to allow misinformation on their platforms for such long periods of time in the first place. There are several actions that the government or the companies themselves can take to show they are trying to prevent lies from being spread on these platforms. People have called for the tech companies to be more transparent in their actions, such as setting up a committee to make decisions about banning users and flagging tweets with clear standards that they adhere to.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Lydia Storella can be reached at storella@umich.edu. Design by Katherine Lee

KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST

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Wait ... did you say GameStop?

have many fond childhood memories at my local GameStop, a tiny store in Somerset Collection Mall nestled between a candle shop and the public restrooms. Back in the days before Twitter and Instagram, when Amazon was just a bookseller who struggled to compete with Borders, I spent my time in a magnificent little nerdy paradise containing a catalog of video games dating back to the 1990s and extending up to the newest releases. While my sisters and parents went around the mall running their errands, I was sure to be in the shop chatting up the workers or playing the demo game set up near the entrance. Then, sadly, the Internet boomed, brick and mortar stores like this became increasingly obsolete, and this chain fell in stature alongside so many others. However, this is only half of this story. The other side begins in quite possibly the complete opposite of metro Detroit — Wall Street. Typically, when we think of Wall Street, we think of the big institutional investors like JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and so on, but these organizations are just one piece of the financial world. Instead of these traditionally beneficial actors, this story focuses on the shadowy world of hedge funds. Hedge funds are kind of like shadow banks for uber-wealthy consumers who are willing to take on more risks in exchange for potentially massive rewards, sometimes increasing their investments by 40 to 50%. While these funds began as somewhat isolated and extremely susceptible to market fundamentals — like a business’s quarterly earnings and the overall economic environment — they have steadily gained influence over the market, transforming into some of the most powerful market actors. One of their many methods of exerting this influence is by shorting (betting against) struggling companies, spreading misinformation

by manipulating financial media and other institutions to send these companies into a downward spiral while making a tidy profit off their bankruptcies. This practice — while not necessarily illegal — is deeply unethical market manipulation and a symptom of an increasingly out-of-control marketplace fueled by cynicism, greed and a lack of government regulation. However, on Jan. 25, the people decided to fight back. On the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, users organized to conduct a mass purchase of GameStop (GME) — one of the most shorted stocks by hedge funds due to its declining stature, inflexible business model and poor pandemic response — to artificially drive the stock price up and deal a financial blow to hedge funds. This plan, however seemingly unlikely, succeeded beyond just about anyone’s expectations, skyrocketing GME’s price over 1,000% over the last week and forcing many hedge funds to incur massive losses to the tune of billions of dollars. These hedge funds, in panic mode, accused these retail investors of market manipulation, which is not entirely unfounded. With that being said, their argument rings hollow as hedge funds are the original market manipulators. Regulators have shown them leniency. Therefore, regulators should show leniency to the everyday Americans who are fighting back. Things were looking good for retail investors who were finally getting one over on the monied interests when, on Thursday morning, what can be generously described as the most collusive action against retail investors in the last decade was undertaken. Popular trading platforms like Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and Webull restricted the purchasing of GME and other Redditpromoted companies. This,inturn,sentGMEintoastateof wild fluctuation rising as high as $483 per share and sinking as low as $112 per

share within the day. It also sparked major controversy online, motivating thousands to sign onto a class-action lawsuit against Robinhood — whose slogan is “democratizing finance for all,” despite recently paying $65M to settle an investigation into their practice of selling users’ information to institutional investors. The issue united Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y., Barstool Founder Dave Portnoy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and political commentator Ben Shapiro while bringing investor Leon Cooperman to the verge of tears in a truly hilarious video that I cannot recommend highly enough. So, where does that leave us? Well, I hate to rain on Reddit’s parade, but this is probably not the day when we #EatTheRich. However, I do believe that this event has finally woken the American people — on both sides of the aisle — up to how corrupt the market can be. Between the Trump administration’s frenzied and mostly half-baked deregulation and the real world’s increasing disconnection from the stock market, something like this was bound to happen. Personally, I thank God that it wasn’t much worse, but that is not to say that this story is over. In fact, I think it is just beginning. I think we are headed for more market instability on the immediate horizon, and it will not stop until our politicians say that enough is enough and embolden government regulators. Until then, this was a good first shot where a down-on-our-luck Main Street struck back at a bloated and overconfident Wall Street. For the hedge funds, the party is likely winding down, but for the people, Mr. Brightside just began playing and you better be sure that they can hear the people sing. Keith Johnstone can be reached at keithja@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST

Why we should give the congressional district method a try

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n the early days of our republic, our founders were faced with a question of lasting significance; how should our president be chosen? Two potential answers arose and came into conflict with one another. Some founders supported the idea of choosing the president with a simple popular vote by the American people. Conversely, others thought Congress alone should select the president. This debate gave way to a solution

in the middle. The president would neither be selected exclusively by a popular vote nor by Congress. Our chief executive would instead be chosen by a body of electors, a system that is widely known today as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is one of the most remarkable inventions of our framers. It gives a tremendous amount of power to the people to directly choose the president, which is critical in a representative democracy like ours. But the Electoral College isn’t based on the popular vote alone. If that were the case, presidential candidates would likely focus solely on the largest states, like California, New York and Texas. It gives a higher degree of representation to small states like Wyoming and Alaska that would otherwise be forgotten. Through this unique system, every state in our republic matters. 244 years since United States was founded, the Electoral College continues to determine the outcome of presidential elections every four years. But recent trends across the country have eroded the advantages of this system. A critical component of the Electoral College is that major population centers don’t hold all of the power. That was true at first, but the framers could never have anticipated the rapid population growth of the United States. When this system was enacted, the total population of our country was less than four million people according to the 1790 census. Today, the U.S. has more than 330 million people. But this dramatic jump doesn’t tell the whole story. Since more than 80% of Americans live in urban areas today, the Electoral College no longer represents the true heart of America. It inadvertently silences the voices it was intended to amplify. There are a number of proposals that have been floated to remedy the Electoral College. Arguably the strongest is the congressional district method: reforming the system to allocate electoral votes on the basis of congressional districts instead of entire states. At the moment,

with the exception of Nebraska and Maine, each state awards its electors through the winnertake-all method. The candidate that receives the highest tally (technically, even if they win a state by a single vote) receives all of that state’s electoral votes. For instance, in the 2020 presidential election, Democratic president Joe Biden took all of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes despite winning the state by a slim 0.3%. This becomes more and more problematic as the U.S. continues to rapidly urbanize. Because 48 out of 50 states award their electoral votes according to the winner-take-all method, urban and suburban areas have become unusually important. If a presidential candidate can run the table in a dense population center, they can virtually ignore the rest of the state. Instead of giving a voice to every American, the current system places far too much emphasis on a small group of cities. Right here in Michigan, much of the vote is determined by Metro Detroit, which contains more than 40% of all Michigan residents. The same is true in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and numerous other cities. If the Electoral College awarded votes on the basis of congressional districts, we could effectively solve this problem. Determining the winner according to congressional districts would give the entire country a say in choosing our next president. While forgotten rural areas, in particular, would have the representation they deserve, our suburbs and urban areas would still have considerable power. Every district would be given a voice, and many more areas across the nation would be in play. It would become normal to see a Republican candidate visit a state like California, and to see a Democratic candidate visit Texas. On the national scale, the congressional district method would closely mirror how Nebraska and Maine already award their electors. Instead of the top candidate in a state securing all electoral votes, each congressional district would be worth one vote, since every congressional district is home to roughly the same number of people. After the congressional districts award their votes, the remaining two electors (one for each senator) would be allocated to the state popular vote winner. This proposal might initially seem to disproportionately favor the Republican presidential candidate since large blue states often have red districts who would give electoral votes to

ANYA SINGH | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT ANYAS@UMICH.EDU.

Republicans. For instance, in the 2020 presidential election, Republican candidate Donald Trump won congressional districts across Michigan and Pennsylvania even though he lost both states. Under the current system, Trump was awarded no electoral votes from either of these states; a reformed Electoral College would allocate a substantial number of votes to Trump. The same would be true in New York and California, states Biden won handily despite Trump performing well in rural areas. But awarding votes on the basis of congressional districts benefits the Democratic presidential candidate too. For example, Biden won congressional districts in Texas, Florida and Ohio despite losing all three of these states. Under the winner-take-all model, Biden didn’t earn any electoral votes from these states. This new Electoral College would have awarded Biden a significant number of electoral votes that he didn’t receive under the current system. If the Electoral College were reformed, both Republican and Democratic candidates would pick up votes in areas that otherwise would have been glossed over by the winner-take-all method. It truly is a system that is fairer to both sides. It also makes elections more competitive, giving every candidate a fair shot. Had the congressional district method been used in 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would have lost the electoral college by a much narrower margin. The same would be true in 2020, with Biden prevailing over Trump with fewer electoral votes. Finally, this proposed system takes the emphasis off of states as a whole and focuses instead on individual districts, which are smaller areas that have clearer needs and priorities. This is especially important in larger states. For example, California has 53 congressional districts, all of which have unique situations. The people of California lack a voice when a state of nearly 40 million people is treated as one unit. Choosing the president of the United States is no simple matter. But if we want our chief executive to truly be a reflection of the will of the people, we need to take steps to make sure all corners of our republic have a say. If our founders had the opportunity to live in 2021, they would want nothing more than that. Evan Stern can be reached at erstern@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Opinion

JULIAN BARNARD | COLUMNIST

Bernie, get your gun: A conversation about firearms in a perilous era

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eing a politician is a dangerous job. Just this month we have seen the United States Capitol invaded by extremists, some even spotted carrying zip ties, presumably with the intent to kidnap members of our government. Some members of Congress are taking their safety into their own hands. For instance, U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., has recently been looking to purchase body armor. He made this decision out of fear for personal safety after he voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. There are legitimate threats to the personal safety of members of Congress, and while enhanced U.S. Capitol Police presence around all members is absolutely necessary, we as a country need to decide if that is enough. Security is like swiss cheese: you want to stack as many slices on top of each other as possible to cover the holes and mitigate risk. In light of the present danger, should members of Congress keep guns in their homes? Yes, and here is why. If I wrote this article before Jan. 6, or five years from now, I would rightfully be called paranoid for making such a sweeping and extreme recommendation, but the dangerous moment we are living in merits an appropriate response. Guns are one of the most viscerally divisive issues on the modern American political landscape, so this piece deserves a short primer before we go any further. I myself am not a gun fanatic — I don’t own a gun, I have never shot a gun and I do not fantasize about overthrowing a tyrannical government with a gun. This piece does not reflect any views on background checks, mandatory waiting periods, red flag laws, restrictions on magazine size or restrictions on the types of guns a person should be allowed to have.

All I am trying to say is that if I had the opportunity, I would suggest that my congresswoman consider purchasing a gun for her home — not for the House floor or to carry on her hip at all times, but for those instances where a bodyguard may be too far away to prevent a tragedy. A gun should by no means be the first line of defense, but should instead fill in the gaps left by a professional protective detail. Only the Speaker of the House, the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and the House and Senate whips have fulltime, designated security details. That is only nine of 535 voting members of Congress who have personal protection 24 hours a day. Many reading this, across the political spectrum, would agree this amount of protection is insufficient at this moment in history. Personal protective details have proven to be able to mitigate some risk. Take the attack on the Congressional baseball game in 2017, for instance. Though several congresspeople — including House Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. — were grievously injured, it would have been much worse had Scalise’s protective detail not been there, a privilege that was only afforded to him because he holds a leadership position in Congress. Imagine you are a member of Congress. Imagine you have received death threats, have had people come to your home, had your place of work invaded and had your family jeopardized. Imagine that the people employed to secure your place of work, for whatever reason, have not been able to do their jobs to a satisfactory standard. Imagine — even if you are one of the lucky members who has 24-hour security — that you hear someone break into your home while you sleep. This is an uncommon, though very feared, scenario for most Americans, but

is absolutely within the realm of possibility for our members of Congress in 2021. In the event of this nightmare, I want my Representative — and future Secretary of the Interior — Deb Haaland, D-N.M., to have the means to defend herself. We should understand the counterargument to my line of thinking: Guns, statistically, don’t make people safer. There is a higher likelihood of the gun owner or their family injuring themselves than stopping an attacker. For every one fatal use of a gun in self-defense, there are two fatal gun accidents. However, considering the credible threats against the lives and safety of our representatives, the calculus of safety looks much different for politicians than it does for the average American. If a member of Congress does want to utilize a gun for self-defense, the government should provide gun safety training for the member so that they can most effectively keep themselves safe. Normally, progressives, like me, don’t find ourselves agreeing with Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. or Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C. Gun rights for members of Congress have recently been a Republican talking point, with Boebert petitioning to bring her Glock onto the floor of the House. But let’s think about it — even though Republicans are the most ardent gun supporters today, who would benefit from having a gun in their home the most? Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. and others are the recipients of the most ire from the mob who stormed the Capitol earlier this month, but are not provided with a 24/7 security detail. We should of course draw a line at what is a reasonable bearing of arms. It is not reasonable for members of Congress to bring their firearms onto

the floor of the House and Senate, considering the significant security measures that have been undertaken since the Jan. 6 riot. A gun can be a helpful tool, but it should be carried judiciously. One politician who could be more amenable to a gun-oriented protection plan is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Sanders has a record of much more moderate gun policies than one would expect from the well-established progressive. Some of his most notable dissents from the Democratic Party include his 1993 vote against a bill that mandated background checks for gun sales. In more recent years, Sanders has altered some of his positions on guns, but his dissents still serve as a demonstration that moderate views about gun control still have a place in the landscape of liberal thought. In conversations about gun control, many people — both those in favor of gun control like myself, and those against it — can lose sight of what a gun is. A gun is neither a symbol of American hubris and disrespect for life nor a permanent protector of liberty and the American way. A gun is a tool used to accomplish a goal, like a jackhammer. Usually, a gun isn’t the best tool to keep a home safe and will more likely hurt someone in an accident than stop a legitimate intruder — at least that’s the case for the average homeowner. Members of Congress are in a different situation altogether. They are under imminent threat from domestic terrorism, so guns pass back over the line from dangerous ornament to helpful tool. This is an atypical policy response from a progressive, but it could absolutely prevent another tragedy in a chaotic epoch. Julian Barnard can be reached at jcbarn@umich.edu.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 11

SAM WOITESHEK | COLUMNIST

Where will it end?

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henever I sat down for my fifth-hour AP United States Government and Politics class in high school, I would brace myself. Here we go, I thought. Every day I reminded myself never to crack the eggshells I walked on or to care too much about the arbitrary arguments of my classmates. It’s just a high school class, I remembered, and you’re here for the grade. I recall one class where we had a “free day” to debate any subject of our choosing. Naturally, as most dramatic teenagers do, we selected the topic of abortion. Instead of partaking in the riveting dissension, I elected to illustrate the map of students in the order of those that talked. “Thank god I don’t have to do this,” I whispered to my table mate. As I predicted, the civility of the discourse lasted all of three minutes. Leaving class that day, I didn’t think much about the dispute. I had merely gone through the motions for five months and had one hour left before school ended. I tended to avoid engaging in political issues for fear of being ridiculed, arrogant or both. Yet I wanted to speak up, to participate when the moment was right. Now, a year later, I realize that such a time rarely comes when it’s convenient. Creating these opportunities for ourselves to speak up is crucially important as they allow us to voice our opinions on our current state of democracy. Perhaps many of us have never been afforded this chance or, in a more complex sense, are unsure of how to do so. Starting an honest conversation is like Goldilocks: It’s either too blunt or too subtle, but never just right. Eventually, the perpetual passiveness builds up. We release it in small bursts with social media posts and retweets, but that usually ends up creating more division than solidarity. So we push it back down, because nobody really cares anyway, right? We save our frustrations for a bigger fight, a more impactful event — such as attacking the U.S. Capitol.

I’ll spare you the details as I’m sure you’ve already watched, listened and read about it. It’s appalling and disgusting no matter the political party — or at least it should be. If we thought we had hit rock bottom before, then now we’re approaching some anarchist dystopia that will permanently rupture the well-being of our country. Yet, my dad called me into his room and we watched a stunned Wolf Blitzer attempt to analyze the situation, I wasn’t in total shock. I was more or less unfazed, as if this was just another level of insanity we’ve reached. Perhaps this may seem cruel or flippant, but it’s hardly refutable. Yes, we could be better as a country, but right now we aren’t. Granted, I never thought it would come to what it has. This happened on our watch, and we’re left to deal with the consequences. It may not be about white privilege or how horribly some Republicans behave. It’s about large-scale political repression and how to reach its solution. Our feelings of anguish have overstayed their welcome. In these times, I think of the character of the U.S. and how, after unspeakable tragedies like 9/11, the nation bonded and turned its newfound unity into resilience. Such a healing transformation seems like a pipe dream at the moment. I also reflect on my U.S. government class, where a debate that appeared meaningless in the big picture actually served as a microcosm for our national and political polarization. I remember looking at the diagram of dialogue I had scribbled, a zigged-zagged representation of dished out oneliners and utter chaos.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Sam Woiteshek can be reached at swoitesh@umich.edu.

BRANDON COWIT | COLUMNIST

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What’s happened since the Soleimani assassination?

efore a global pandemic, racial justice protests and a presidential election, 2020 already had a chaotic start with the United States’ assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, on Jan. 3. The assassination spiked already high tensions between the U.S. and Iran to levels not seen for decades, causing many internet users to assume the imminent beginning of World War III. Obviously, this did not happen. Iran’s only retaliation for the killing was to launch missiles at two American military bases in Iraq, which caused no casualties and seemed almost designed not to do so. After that, tensions largely declined, with no further military action by either side, not even on the anniversary last week, when some form of acknowledgement was expected by many national security experts. However, it would be a mistake to claim that this quiet means that the two countries are at peace. In fact, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing U.S. sanctions campaign against Iran became all the more cruel and unbefitting of a nation that claims to fight for human rights. We would do well to end it. First, a little background on the American sanctions program on Iran: While the U.S. has leveled sanctions

against Iran nearly consistently since the beginning of the hostage crisis in 1979, the most directly relevant sanctions to the ones we apply today were initially passed as part of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010. These sanctions banned the import and export of Iranian goods that were more valuable than $100 to the U.S., with the exception of some food and medicine items. These sanctions were passed in order to discourage the development of Iran’s nuclear program, and were heavily relaxed by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which stipulated that these sanctions would be relaxed unless Iran restarted its nuclear program. Repealing these sanctions had a massive positive effect on Iran’s economy and quality of life, with its GDP expanding 13.4% in 2016 and its Human Development Index increasing by 0.01, one of the largest upward movements that year. However, with the U.S. exit from the JCPOA in 2018, the sanctions that the deal relaxed have been put back into place. Predictably, in the same metrics that proved the increase in Iran’s quality of life after the sanctions were relaxed, Iran began to decline, with GDP decreases of over 6% in both 2018 and 2019 and its HDI decreasing by 0.002 in both years, one of the worst for any country in that time.

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Design by Melissa Lee

the resources they need to continue to carry out their terror campaign.” A Wall Street Journal editorial from March states that there is no reason to end the sanctions because, “The regime is responsible for the people’s suffering.” However, neither of these arguments actually hold up to greater scrutiny. The Iranian

backed paramilitaries of Hezbollah and the al Houthis both remained active in 2020 despite the sanctions, not that blocking either one was ever a great reason to starve a country of medical supplies and crash its economy. Additionally, while no one can say that the Iranian government handled the pandemic well, it is ridiculous to suggest that removing

their biggest sources of revenue and obstructing their access to basic medical equipment had nothing to do with their failure.

Biden has announced that he plans to roll out more of his climate and environmental goals in the coming weeks. As of this week, he planned on signing a plethora of executive orders on Jan. 27. These included a “series of regulatory actions to combat climate change domestically and elevates climate change as a national security priority,” suggesting that — so far — climate change seems to be near the top of the current administration’s priorities. On his campaign website, he goes more in-depth about his goals. Biden’s major goal is for the U.S. to have 100% renewable, clean energy by 2050. The steps he lays out to get there include investing in infrastructure to make it resilient to the effects of climate change, rallying foreign allies to commit to and follow through with climate goals and the “largest-ever” investment

into clean energy research and development. On top of that, Biden has continuously emphasized that his administration will listen to “the science.” Biden has a real chance to make sweeping and bold policy decisions that will drastically improve millions of lives and give Americans and people around the world a fighting chance against climate change. But will he do it? For Biden to become a successful president, he must eliminate the conditions that facilitated the rise of Trump. This means substantially bettering the living conditions of everyday people and, in the process, creating a safer and healthier environment for everyone. The era of small ideas must come to an end — back to normal is not an option.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com Brandon Cowit can be reached at cowitb@umich.edu.

Go big or go home

ALEX NOBEL | COLUMNIST ast Wednesday at noon, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as the 46th president and the 49th vice president, respectively, sparking hope for millions of Americans who voted for them. However, they are faced with no easy task. The new administration inherits a deeply divided country with one of its worst economies since the Great Depression, on top of a pandemic that has taken the lives of over 400,000 individuals and a climate crisis already wreaking havoc across the country. The Biden-Harris administration has been given a historic opportunity to take advantage of their Democratic trifecta and use it to address the country’s biggest problems with large, sweeping solutions. Biden and Democrats must go bold with climate change policies or risk recreating the conditions that allowed for former President Donald Trump to rise to power.

And now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the weight of the sanctions has been felt even more heavily in Iran. From the beginning, the government’s efforts at economic stimulus were hampered by the fact that they could no longer export oil, denying them half of their previous revenues. Compounding that, a 2019 Human Rights Watch report stated that American sanctions have denied Iran access to medical supplies, something that became an exponentially greater issue in a pandemic. Finally, Iran was forced to reopen in May, which was earlier than was medically advisable, because its economy had been so weakened by sanctions that it could not remain locked down. It is not a great leap of logic to suggest that these sanctions and their effects are at least a contributing factor to Iran having one of the highest per capita COVID19 death rates in the world. In light of this, as well as allegations that re-imposing the sanctions in the first place violated the JCPOA, the United Nations Security Council voted in a 13-2 vote to proclaim that the U.S. had no right to impose the sanctions. All of this, however, leaves many defenders of the sanctions undeterred. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defends keeping the sanctions, stating how, “We have done remarkable work to deny the regime

The last time the Democrats controlled the Senate, House of Representatives and the White House was under former President Barack Obama’s first two years in office from 2009 to 2011. Even though Obama was left with a deeply struggling economy from the 2007-2008 financial crisis, his actions as president laid the groundwork for Trump to gain popularity, specifically in the Rust Belt and to eventually win the 2016 election. Trump was able to win roughly 8.4 million voters that voted for Obama in 2012, resulting in more than 200 counties being flipped. This begs the question of why this happened. Is it because Obama shied away from the big ideas he ran on while campaigning? Was it a reflection of the overconfident campaign that former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ran? Were the economic hardships caused by the disastrous trade deals in

the Midwest too much for the Democrats to overcome? Placing the blame on one single factor is naive and will only start needless debate. However, moving on without retrospection will only lead to repeated mistakes. Lessons need to be learned from the last Democratic presidential administration so that another demagogue is not able to make it back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In addition to reversing Trump’s executive orders and trying to make inroads while attempting to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control, Biden has already signed 30 executive orders in total, with two focusing on climate or the environment. The first of these reentered the United States into the Paris climate agreement, a long-time promise from Biden but a very basic step after Trump withdrew the country

in 2017. The other executive order canceled construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have run from Canada down to Texas, marking a huge victory for the thousands of Indigenous and environmental activists who fought the pipeline every step of the way. That same order directed federal agencies to review and reverse more than 100 regulations that the Trump administration rolled back over four years. Yes, these are good and necessary first steps, but there is still a long way to go to lessen the effects of climate change and the first 100 days of Biden’s presidency will tell us a lot about how big and bold he is willing to go. Rejoining the Paris Agreement and overturning Trump’s deregulations only brings the country back to where it was just four years prior. Biden must enact new policies to bring us into the future and make up for lost time under Trump.

Alex Nobel can be reached at anobel@umich.edu.

statement

12 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Starvation by any other name:

BY ABIGAIL SNYDER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

How spring break diet culture enables disordered eating Content warning: This piece contains descriptions of eating disorders

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y favorite book begins by painting a vivid image of frozen, foggy city streets, and as piercing gusts of wind push the temperature outside my window into the single-digits, I can’t help but put forth my version of the same: it is damn cold outside. It was damn cold yesterday, it will be damn cold tomorrow and it is going to be damn cold for the foreseeable future. Bleak is certainly the word that seems most fitting. It is the frigid heart of Michigan winter, and when every day is this gray and this gloomy, who among us can be blamed for wanting to escape to sunny sands and warm beaches? Spring break trips seem to be the solution. Group spring break trips targeted specifically towards college students (and especially towards students who participate in Greek life) market themselves as an opportunity to do just that. Companies such as JusCollege and EF Ultimate Break offer trips that they say are the ultimate college travel experience: a pictureperfect spring break, with nothing to coordinate — just sign up, and you and your friends are all set to head off to places like Miami, Puerto Vallarta or Cabo San Lucas. These trips are marketed specifically to college students as an opportunity to go on spring break with everyone they know — not just one or two friend groups, but entire social circles, entire organizations; not just ten or even twenty people, but hundreds of people. It may sound like the ideal setup, but it’s also a daunting situation to walk into. I know it would be for me. I remember the first time I felt selfconscious about my body. It was the end of fifth grade, and my elementary school was throwing the graduating class the annual pool party. I knew I couldn’t wear the Speedos I wore to swim practice, so my mom and I went bathing suit shopping at Gap Kids, and I came home with a purple-and-tealstriped bikini and a yellow one-piece with sunflowers on it — that way I could have options, my mom said. In the store, I really could have gone either way about which suit to wear to the pool party. But I got home and started to worry about which one to wear. I ended up going with the one-piece. I told my mom it was because I was too pale for the bikini, and that I’d have to work on my tan before I could wear it around my friends. That wasn’t the truth. The truth was that, at 11 years old, I was already self-conscious about the way my body would look in a bikini. And that was just my fifth-grade pool

party — I can count on one hand the people who were there that I’m still close to. But hitting the beach in roughly the same amount of fabric as that yellow one-piece on this side of the growth spurt? With everyone I know at this university — the guy I like, the girls I hope will be friends for life and everyone they know here, too — looking at me? As my fifth-grade self would have put it, you’d have an easier time teaching London Tipton how to drive. The PRNDL? Sure, no problem. But a beach filled with people whose validation I want so, so badly? Excuse me, I’m just going to look for Miley Cyrus in this room that Hannah Montana is in. I knew I wasn’t alone in this sentiment. I spoke about these types of experiences via Zoom with several women who went on spring break trips similar to those aforementioned. The women’s names have been changed (denoted with asterisks) to protect their anonymity in order to allow them to speak about this sensitive issue freely. I spoke with Heather, an LSA senior who went on group spring break trips to Miami and Cabo her freshman and sophomore years, about her experience. “It was a lot — being around everyone we knew for those four days in just a bikini,” Heather said. “Then there’s the fact that it was going to be remembered for so long because of the pictures, and because people judge you on how you look. Looking back, it was so stupid, but it was such a thing.” Lisa*, another LSA senior, also experienced the social pressure that these spring break trips can create, saying that it can be easy to fall into self-comparison with everyone else on the trip. “It was intimidating knowing that we were spending four days in this environment,” she said. “Being at the darties (day parties), and being by the pool, knowing that there were gonna be girls who were gonna be so skinny, and then me — I wasn’t comfortable taking my sarong off. It was just an intimidating atmosphere, knowing that we would be in bikinis for five days straight.” But spring break isn’t supposed to be intimidating; it’s supposed to be fun. More specifically, it’s supposed to be the “time of your life,” and when real life isn’t matching up to that perfect picture, it’s incredibly anxietyinducing. Advertisements like this one end up perpetuating that sort of stress, presenting these spring break trips as a chance to have the best time ever — a chance, in other words, to “peak.” With entire social circles on one trip, by one pool, at one party, spring break can become an opportunity to take control of your social life. The trip provides opportunities that a standard house party or tailgate might not. Studies show that a desire for con-

If you or someone you know is struggling or may be struggling with eating disorders and/or disordered eating, please contact one of the following resources for help: National Eating Disorders Association National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders University of Michigan Eating Disorder Resources

trol can play a major role in the development of eating disorders. And when spring break seems more and more like the perfect opportunity to take control of your social life, combined with a somewhat universal feeling of social pressure, maybe it should be less surprising that many women develop disordered eating habits in the weeks leading up to the trip. Kendrin Sonneville, a professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, explained this phenomenon in a Zoom call with me. “The college years are a time of epidemiologic vulnerability — that is, it’s a time where people are more likely to experience onset of disordered eating or full-syndrome eating disorders,” Sonneville said. “People who are already worried about how they look, or people who are already intending to do a spring break trip, they’re going to see those images (in advertisements) and think, ‘Oh gosh I really have to take my weight and shape control activities more seriously, I have to up the ante, I have to be more extreme.’” It’s important to note that disordered eating is not the same as an eating disorder. Disordered eating behaviors are defined by the National Institutes of Health as eating patterns that are abnormal, but not to the extent that would warrant diagnosis of a full-syndrome eating disorder. Examples of these habits include use of diet pills, skipping or limiting meals, fasting and self-induced vomiting. In other words, these can be symptoms of eating disorders but at a lower frequency. Disordered eating can also escalate into a full-syndrome disorder, according to the NIH. These disordered eating behaviors can become common in the build-up to the spring break trip itself, Lisa says. “I started eating really healthy, like for lunch I would just have some tuna and some cucumbers and when we went out, we would binge, because we were so hungry and we had starved ourselves all day,” said Lisa. “Horribly, the week before (sophomore spring break), I got this laxative tea and drank that and took a laxative. I’d never taken a laxative before, but I just wanted to look good, and that was my experience. Constantly, it was something I was thinking about.” The group nature of the trips can also be a factor in both initiating and perpetuating these behaviors. Many of the women’s friend groups live together and eat together, so peer pressure becomes palpable, said Heather. “Living with other girls who were all going through the same thing, it was a constant, constant conversation,” she said. “It just leads to a really toxic environment, because if you see other people only eating salads, and you want to have a burger or pasta or something, you think it’s wrong. So even if it was just a couple people who were really vocal about it, everyone’s actions spoke loudly.” Some groups even go beyond just that atmospheric pressure and commit to losing the weight together. It can create a sense of group accountability that can be very persistent, Traci Carson, who finished her Doctorate in Epidemiology through the Public Health School last year with a research focus on eating disorders, told me over Zoom. The constant conversation around body image only adds to this, she says. “The group thing can kick in, of ‘We’re all gonna do this together and hold each other accountable,’” Carson said. “So much of our culture re-

volves around talking about our bodies and talking about other people’s bodies and making comments about other people’s bodies, especially in college.” Carso also stressed that seemingly innocuous or complimentary comments on social media, which often becomes flooded with spring break photos once classes get out, can encourage women who are already engaging in harmful eating habits to continue on that pathway. “You see it all the time,” Carson said. “A woman will post a photo of herself and the comments section will be almost like making fun of her how small she is or how skinny she is in a way that’s intended to boost her ego and intended to make her feel good. But if that woman is struggling or on the verge of struggling with restrictive eating and eating disorders, it can just reinforce that she’s doing the right thing and exacerbate those behaviors because she’s getting those positive feedback.” Because of this reinforcement, comments such as “omg FIRE”, “insane” and “so hot” can lead to a nasty cycle of more and more dieting and eating restriction in pursuit of those compliments. “Those comments are so harmful, and could end up contributing to a very long period of getting stuck in these patterns of restrictive eating and loving that positive reinforcement,” said Carson. The self-comparison facilitated by social media can also lead women towards more restrictive eating behaviors. Hayley Friedman, an LSA junior in recovery from anorexia nervosa, spoke to me about this very concept over Zoom. The availability of smiling, dancing images of perceived cooler girls having the time of their lives on similar trips, just a few clicks away — they’re too easy to find and too easy to compare yourself to. “That was something that I struggled with for a really long time,” Friedman said. “I would constantly see pretty, skinny girls … and I remember especially in high school taking pictures with friends or even just seeing pictures on social media, and just being like ‘Oh my gosh I wish I looked like that’ or ‘How did she do that’ or ‘Whoa, those abs.’” Most people know that social media posts are usually heavily edited and filtered, and that the people in the photos are often sucking in, flexing and posing the exact right way in order for their body to appear more ideal for the photo. Still, though, as these techniques become increasingly subtle and convincing, it can be harder and harder to separate these images from reality, Friedman explained. “That was definitely a really big struggle for me — sometimes it even still is,” Friedman said. “I’ll see a photo — especially bathing suit pictures feel like the be-all, end all, and it makes it really difficult to see someone’s picture-perfect photograph of them posed in the exact right position, flexing, whatever it may be, and then you’re like ‘Oh my gosh, they look like that always, and I don’t look like that.’ There’s such a disconnect.” But even knowing that the disconnect is there doesn’t actually help that much, because someway or another, that girl you always stalk on Instagram managed to make herself look like that in that photo, and no matter how much you remind yourself it’s not real, the fact is that it feels real. At least, it does to me.

I’ll see the photos, and I’ll wonder what my life would be like if my legs were that long, if my abs looked like hers, if I could get my hair to do that. And spring break is when I feel it the most, because my friends are really pretty, okay, and it’s the one week of the year when many are posting those photos at the same time. The environment that spring break can create on social media around these trips can increase the pressure to look a certain way, especially in pictures, said Sandy*, a Music & Theatre senior over Zoom. Sandy went on two group trips, one sophomore year and one junior year, during her time at school. “We all compare ourselves to each other when we see those pictures,” Sandy said. “I knew people who were like, ‘We need to work out every day so we can post pictures and look good,’ and I knew she was comparing herself to other people.” All of these factors combined — the trip “everyone’s” going on, the photos “everyone’s” going to be posting, the opportunity to take control of the social situation — essentially create a pressure-cooker in the weeks leading up to the trip. As the departure date gets closer, the temperature inches ever-higher and girls start to turn to increasingly harmful measures to achieve their “body goals,” Lisa said. It involves a lot of workouts — “A lot of girls, including myself, we got Ross gym memberships, and you’d go every day and see everyone there,” Lisa explained — and not a lot of calories. Heather recalls seeing friends replace everything possible with limited “healthier” options. Pancakes and French toast at brunch are replaced with fruit and yogurt. Pasta and tacos are replaced by salads at the dinner table. At pregames for parties, lemonade and fruit punch chasers are replaced with lime wedges. Late-night cheesy bread from Pizza House and wings from Mr. Spot’s are replaced with carrots and celery. And as things get more intense, she said, even those “healthier” options get replaced by nothing at all. But these changes in diet actually result in the opposite of their desired effect, Dr. Terrill Bravender, the chief of adolescent medicine and director of the eating disorder center at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, said over Zoom. “The first thing is that your body responds by going into what we think of as starvation mode, meaning it starts to metabolize itself,” Bravender explained. “The first step in doing that, physiologically, is not to burn fat, it’s actually to burn protein, and so if we go for a prolonged period without taking any external nutrition in, the first reaction of our body is that we metabolize our muscles. That’s not exactly the intention that most people have when they go on a crash diet.” If the dieting continues, it can cause a wide variety of issues, Bravender said. These can include slowed brain function, decreased heart rate and blood pressure, weakened cardiovascular health, a range of gastrointestinal issues and lower immune system functioning. Additionally, people who are underweight have quicker and stronger reactions to alcohol and can experience dizziness, nausea and fainting, especially in warm, and/or crowded situations — instances which are common occurrences during spring break. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 13

Curiosity won’t kill you just ask my cats

BY MELANIE TAYLOR, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

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have two particularly incessant roommates. They destroy my study spaces, knocking my notebook to the floor while I’m preoccupied on Zoom. They perform perilous parkour atop kitchen cabinets, bed frames and any other obstacle around the apartment they manage to summit. They scream for hours until I prepare their meals and, when it’s finally time, they devour them without thanks. It doesn’t seem that curiosity can kill my beloved cats, Socks and Salem, but their curiosity may just kill me. All jokes aside, I wouldn’t trade my cats for the world. I’ve had them for about a year and a half. When they were adopted in July 2019, I couldn’t have guessed what was in store for our future. I couldn’t have known the solace that their curiosity would bring these past few months. No matter how monotonous the days would become, me waking each morning to a world unchanged and unexciting, Socks and Salem never saw it that way. They instead greet each day as a new adventure, always able to find some aspect of life still ripe for exploration. Most interestingly, though, is that amid these perpetual esca-

pades, Socks and Salem have also mastered the art of serenity. Whether atop my lap or tucked into some fleece-lined crevice, those two are experts at R&R. And so they spend their days cycling through phases of investigation and relaxation, defying the old adage which claims that curiosity will be their downfall. Instead, curiosity is what sustains them.

Take This As Your Warning

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atching my two favorite boys go about life as usual over these past few months made me wonder why we as a society ever decided that curiosity would kill the cat. When I looked it up, it turned out that the idiom has a curious history of its own. In fact, centuries before “curiosity killed the cat” was popularized as an Irish proverb in the late 1800s, its wisdom took on a different meaning. The phrase’s first written account dates back to Ben Johnson’s 1598 play, “Every Man and His Humor,” in which “curiosity” is swapped for “care.” Johnson’s play was written as a satire. Each of the main characters suffered some

form of obsession, which drove the entire story’s conflict. Care, otherwise conceived of as worry or obsession, was theorized to push a person — or cat — to insanity. This message rang true with other cultural contributors of the era, including William Shakespeare. Just a year after performing in the troupe of Johnson’s play, Shakespeare injected the wisdom into his own works as a line in “Much Ado About Nothing.” “What, courage man!” he wrote. “What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.” Both Johnson and Shakespeare described this overzealous “care” as a grave transgression which hurts not only yourself, but the people around you as well. But despite the rephrasing, my original grievance still holds. “Care killed the cat” just doesn’t align with the behavior I see in Socks and Salem. Cats are by nature aloof and nonchalant. It’s clear that the saying is not meant to be advice for them; instead, it reflects a piece of advice meant to be heard by us. It’s difficult to distinguish the exact point where language breaks from culture. We weave our histories, our passions and our insecurities

into the way we speak — both as individuals and communities. For this reason, each idiom can be used as a case study that cues into a deeper look of culture. Often repeated shards of wisdom provide insight into the evolving values of our society. This begs the question: Why did colloquial culpability for the cat’s demise shift from care to curiosity over the years? Linguistic historians are unsure of exactly how the phrase evolved from a warning against obsession to one against exploration, but in both instances, the message is clear: Stay in your lane, and don’t take on others’ problems as your own. You could make the argument that curiosity is just a more specific form of worry. That is, to be curious is to worry about what you do not yet know. Nevertheless, I feel I must push back against the notion that compassion and inquisition are inherently negative acts. In this moment where there’s little more to do than to bide your time, a rejection of care and curiosity would itself be lethal. Without my relationships or my ability to learn new things, I would have slipped into a catatonic state months ago. Just like with my cats, it seems these “fatal

flaws” of empathy and inquiry are actually our lifeblood. And I’m definitely not the only one to notice, because the evolution of the phrase reflects a change of heart. Eventually, a refrain was tacked onto the idiom which fundamentally altered its meaning — “curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”

Save The Cat

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he Greek word paraprosdokian, literally translating to “beyond expectation,” is used to describe a phrase in which the final portion reveals a bit of information which reframes the phrase at large. Otherwise known as a garden path sentence, paraprosdokians are popular forms of humor and intrigue. The rejoinder regarding satisfaction turned “curiosity killed the cat” into one of the best known paraprosdokians of our age. Now, instead of it being a warning against “care” or “curiosity,” the sentiment urges these pursuits, predicting that one day any damage done will be healed through “satisfaction.” Sure, there may be rifts in relationships or dead ends in research, but there will

Illustration by Katherine Lee

also be fulfilling anniversaries and inspiring bits of knowledge that make the tribulations worthwhile. Still, based on my own observation of Socks and Salem, I really don’t think they’re all that pragmatic in their curious antics. They don’t seek out “satisfaction.” That’s a human desire. Like I said before, this wisdom wasn’t meant for them. It’s meant for us. So why choose cats as the metaphorical vehicle? My hypothesis is that it has to do with cats’ rumored reservoir of extra lives at their disposal. Particularly in light of the “satisfaction” supplement, it’s clear that the saying plays on the notion of redemption which requires that lives be easily lost and revived. That’s not really something that happens to humans, besides in religious or supernatural theories. Conveniently, though, there is an ancient tradition suggesting it may happen to cats. In Egyptian mythology, the sun god AtumRa was said to have journeyed often to the underworld disguised as a cat. Atum-Ra gave life to eight other gods, and the theology took this to mean that she was responsible for nine lives — her own included. Over time, the mythology was passed through a number of other cultures, combined with other lived experiences and condensed into a simple legend: Cats have nine lives. Certainly, they could spare just one to teach us a valuable lesson. Personally, I don’t think that lesson should be “suffer until you’re satisfied.” That’s not what my cats have taught me. As they frolic about the 800 square feet at their disposal, they aren’t denying themselves satisfaction. They are satisfied through their curiosity. They manifest their own happiness, enjoying life as they live it. Sometimes I find myself on the periphery of their mischief. Salem will beckon me over with yearning meows, begging me to bear witness as he repeatedly headbutts the doorpost. Socks will scurry hastily around the room, sprinting across my chest with such ferocity that for a moment, I lose my breath. It’s annoying, but I’ve lately been trying to appreciate it more. It’s easy to find your own satisfaction, if only you know where to look. And I’m incredibly lucky to have two curious cats who are always willing to share their adventures with me.

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14 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wake up and smell the rhetoric BY EMILY BLUMBERG, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

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or most of my life, my brother Noah’s bedroom has been connected to mine. He cannot access the rest of the house without walking through my bedroom each morning. I have had the comforting privilege of reading Noah bedtime stories and hugging him goodnight a mere 10 steps from my own bed. And every single morning, Noah would quietly creak open my door, walk into my room in his old-fundraiser-t-shirts-turned-pajamas, stare at himself in my wall mirror and swiftly exit into the hallway to start his day. What I could have easily dismissed as an early morning annoyance became an experience I looked forward to with each wake up. Thanks to our intimate setup, almost every day of my adolescent life began with a reminder of Noah’s beautiful, unique magic. His quick “walk through and weirdly stare at himself” routine was the kindest personalized alarm clock I could ask for. Even if it was just for a moment before I collapsed back into my pillow until it was almost too late for lunchtime, his warm smile and innocent curiosity pleasantly kicked off even the most dreadful of days. However, it was not only at the break of dawn that Noah’s wonderful and compassionate demeanor made me open my eyes, put on my glasses and truly wake up. Noah’s autism has paved the way for some of the most unusual, heartwrenching and glorious memories of my life. Many of the moments that have shaped who I am were a product of his chaotic and beautiful personality. He has thrown my grandparent’s old books into nearby lakes, resulting in a chaotic yet entertaining family-wide effort to fish them out with string and a bucket. He has been held back by my struggling parents while I quietly cried as he attempted to jump onto train tracks during a meltdown out of desperation for his beloved train to arrive sooner. He has sung his own rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” for everyone at his sleepaway camp at their last night campfire. He has been hugged and kissed by family members who love him endlessly and educated by teachers who would do anything to simply help him write his name. The combination of Noah’s loveable, engaging character and my immense compassion for him has made the empathetic understanding of those different from me a central part of my identity. Our bond has made his metaphorical wake up calls begging me to be kind and actively voice my experiences ring even louder. The first time I recall encountering offensive disability language — language utilized either consciously or subconsciously to dehumanize and/or disrespect those with disabilities — was as a freshman in my high school’s harrowing halls. Classmates I had barely spoken to would casually call a friend “retarded” or “sped” (shorthand for “special education”) for simple actions such as dropping a textbook or spilling water. Hearing these conversations left an anger in my chest that lingered with me. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but something about twisting words once reserved for people like Noah into casual insults tied my stomach in a knot. As I grew older and noticed these occurrences more frequently in my

everyday life, I began to understand why these specific words deeply frustrated and disappointed me. Around junior year of high school, I googled the history of the word “retarded” in an attempt to understand why and how this form of hate speech has become so normalized. Unsurprisingly, my discoveries validated every concern I have ever had about the word’s harmful implications. What was once a neutral medical term for intellectual disabilities has been transformed into slang through the popularization of the term as a synonym for “unintelligent” or “thoughtless.” The term’s

their use. The public should have paid attention to the desires of the disabled community and respected their wishes. It should have been an easy decision to abandon speech that disrespectfully referenced a relatively large community. But this proved to be difficult for a society that struggles to listen to marginalized voices and often does not actively pay attention to the cultural contexts behind word choices. Instead of listening to the voices of the disabled and carefully adopting a more respectful vocabulary, “retarded” was fully transformed into the twisted evil twin of its original interpretation’s intention.

which people need to reach their achievements,” Yergeau said. “It devalues the human dignity and worth of people with disabilities”. The ableist connotations of offensive disability language make disassociating their historical and current usage virtually impossible. The history behind “retarded” and its similar insulting counterparts cause them to be much more than just words. Because of their origins as legitimate medical terms, their association with intellectual disabilities appears to be somewhat indestructible. And when we recognize inevitable complexity, the goal shifts: Rather than waste our time

Illustration by Maggie Wiebe

original definition existed to vaguely diagnose those with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities in a time before more extensive research on different disorders had been done. Due to the widespread use of the word in casual contexts, “retarded” was subsequently condemned as inappropriate within the professional community. Through efforts from the disabled community and their allies, the word was legally barred from use in political and professional proceedings. Through the creation of Rosa’s Law, former President Barack Obama approved legislation that “mentally retarded” was to be removed from all federal documents and replaced with the more respectful term of “intellectual disability.” The law was passed and made possible by efforts from former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and the family of Rosa Marcellino, a nine-year-old girl with Down Syndrome, and their supporters. And that should have been the end of it. Rosa’s Law should have set the societal precedent that “retarded” and its counterparts had become so ridden with problematic undertones that it was time to move past

To gain both an educational and personal perspective on these linguistic issues, I spoke to Remi Yergeau, a University of Michigan associate professor of English and Digital Studies. Yergeau specializes in disability studies and is on the autism spectrum themselves. They discussed the reality of this harmful rhetoric and the ways in which these words reflect our societal and cultural values. “The harm is very real,” Yergeau said. “Those terms are denigrating. They really serve no other purpose than to denigrate. But then they also communicate very strongly what the culture at large views as humanness, basically, because they are dehumanizing terms.” Furthermore, Yergeau emphasized the offensive societal implications of these words in that they subconsciously favor a neurotypical standard of intelligence. This notion therefore criticizes and mocks the disabled community for neurological and social differences that are out of their control. “They also represent really stock and horrifying notions of intelligence, or they value like this able bodied, neuro-typical form of intelligence as if that’s the pinnacle to

attempting to justify adjustable linguistic habits, we need to actively educate ourselves and each other on the damaging impact of our diction and how we can be more inclusive of frequently silenced communities in our language choices. Unfortunately, we know this is easier said than done. Not everyone is willing to welcome corrections to their speech with open arms. Those stuck in their ways seem to eternally loop back to their desire to remain uncensored, and it can feel like an endless losing battle with the public at large. Grappling with this issue has proven to require long term social change and cannot be completely eradicated by a singular law or voice. Society’s deep-seated resistance to diverging from neurotypical standards, as shown in our obsession with offensive slang, allows offensive language to persevere through generations. I continue to see countless friends, significant others and even family members use “retarded,” “autistic” (in a distinctly slang context) and “sped” in their everyday language. And maybe on the surface, I somewhat understand them. It’s human nature to seek indepen-

dence and reject unwanted restrictions. Moreover, people who may crave immediately rewarding behavioral changes can struggle with understanding the long term effects of their language. Upon my recent discovery that common terms such as “dumb”, “stupid” and “idiot” have problematic ties to disability oppression similar to “retarded,” I am embarrassed to say that my immediate instinct was to justify my previous usage with any argument I could devise. But thinking of Noah’s kind voice reminded me once more to improve my actions rather than defend them to protect my pride — especially when its impact hurts a community in a way I will never be able to fully understand myself. Regardless of my lack of firsthand experience with intellectual disabilities, I do my best to force myself out of my comfort zone and confront friends, family and even strangers about their language use in front of me. I have asked people ranging from coworkers to friends to a random girl in my dorm’s communal bathroom to refrain from using “retarded” or “autistic” to describe someone who is or something that is medically neither of those things. It’s terrifying to put myself out there regarding such a controversial subject, but my experiences with Noah remind me that this will always be a worthy fight. To dive deeper into the topic and hear from a more first-hand perspective, I had the privilege of speaking to Best Buddies member Anne Moler, who has a speech processing disorder. Best Buddies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating meaningful relationships between those with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities. As someone with a disability herself, Moler vulnerably reflected on her experiences with hearing offensive disability language in her daily life. “It makes me have thoughts in my head about myself thinking I’m stupid and dumb, and I know that’s not true,” she told me. “I know that everyone with disabilities did not ask for these disabilities. They just were born with them or got them later in life and we want to be treated like everyone else wants to be treated. All we want is inclusion and respect.” LSA sophomore Lydia Goff, Best Buddies treasurer, shared her experience with me as both an ally for the disabled community and an active force in promoting inclusion at the University. She emphasized the imperative role of highlighting disabled voices as much as possible. “It’s so important that we elevate the voices of people with disabilities because it’s not about being a voice for the voiceless,” she said. “It’s about who has the microphone.” In order to truly become aware of the concerns surrounding disability language, we need to elevate disabled voices themselves. It is the people like Yergeau, Moler and Noah who we need to be listening to. It is the people who have experienced what I never have that can wake us up and guide us on the path to a more equitable and inclusive society. It is time for us to act as if we each have a Noah of our own coming into our rooms each morning. It is time for us to act as if each of us have a personal vexation for the offensive contexts in which our words are used. It is time to wake up.

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BY MARISSA SABLE, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

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What? That’s it? I want more!” I thought to myself as I finished the last episode of the new Netflix hit, “Bridgerton.” Netflix’s most-watched series ever revolves around the eight close-knit Bridgerton siblings. Viewers get to know these characters as they look for love during London’s high society “season,” an annual time when elite families would host formal events to introduce their children to society and find them a suitable marriage. Eight episodes of pure fantasy. I binge-watched episode after episode and dreamt of being a part of high society London. “How fantastical,” I thought, wearing one-ofa-kind, uniquely beautiful dresses designed specially for you, attending balls, dancing with the hopes of finding a husband. And if you’re lucky enough, like the main character Daphne, you’ll stumble into a marriage with a husband you actually love. Then there is the morning after the ball, which was another social gathering in itself. The spectacle consisted of sitting in another elegant dress, drinking tea and having pastries with the expectation that potential partners bearing gifts and conversation would walk

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 15

Bridgerton and the allure of the not so good old days

through the doors in an attempt to charm the woman they were after. I couldn’t stop talking about the show with any friends of mine who had watched it. Maybe it was because I don’t watch much television other than the occasional “That ‘70s Show,” or maybe it was because I was so bored over winter break that I didn’t really have much else to talk about. Either way, I realized I was not alone in my obsession — “Bridgerton’’ had taken the internet by storm. Whenever I opened Instagram or Twitter, the memes, videos or tweets shared a common theme: a desire to be a part of the phenomenon. My friends even sent me TikToks with millions of views of women simply obsessing over the fashion, balls and sex displayed on screen. Viewers ate up the allure of English high society — dress in elegant ball gowns, have tea and find a Prince or a Duke as a husband. The overwhelming desire to have a relationship of the kind depicted throughout the series and the glamorization of beauty so prevalent throughout the show seemed to dominate social media and the texts I received. However, after days and

weeks of giving into my infatuation, I decided to take a step back. I started questioning what exactly was so fantastical about the series and what provoked my envy of female characters destined to a life of housework and tight dresses with corsets worn to please men. The beautiful gowns that I was so jealous of were merely used as an attempt to catch the eye of a potential husband. The show reeked of female oppression. What exactly was I glorifying? 1813 London: a time period known as Regency-era England, defined by the reign of the Prince of Wales who took to the throne when his father King George III was deemed unfit to rule due to madness. “Bridgerton” highlights the notorious social aspects of this period — the social season, also known as the marriage market, high fashion, politics and gossip. Unsurprisingly, this social season was exclusive to the upper class, the rich and the aristocratic individuals who lived their lives comfortably distant from the class struggles of the period. This gap in the hierarchy of society was so cosmic that social mobility was virtually unknown — the upper class Illustration by Katherine Lee

was not in reach of the lower classes and vice versa. Notably, of this era, a woman’s social standing depended on her reputation, which could be easily tarnished. “Bridgerton” shines light on the fragility of a woman’s reputation — one that could be so easily destroyed. For example, being seen alone with a man, even if in a purely platonic capacity, could lead to irrefutable damage. In the show, Daphne and Simon, the main relationship of the series, get caught kissing in the garden at one of the season’s balls. Having been caught, and not wanting to ruin Daphne’s honor or destroy her purity (the men of the time period really bought into the idea of tainted goods), they had no choice but to marry. Why does the internet glorify a marriage not born of love, but of societal pressure and oppression of women? Despite the fact that Daphne and Simon ended up being in love after all, their marriage was born out of dread, with Simon almost risking his life in a duel before succumbing to marriage with Daphne. There is nothing glamorous about a 21-year-old woman having a choiceless choice: having to choose between being exiled from society or marrying a man who would rather die than take the title of her husband. Predictably, this was not the only instance of female oppression in the show. Eloise, one of the sisters in the Bridgerton family, struggled with not being able to pursue her own passion. Eloise understood the sad reality that as a woman, she simply did not have the freedom to do as she pleased, focus on her studies and pursue a career. Eloise was destined to the same life as her sister, Daphne. The overwhelming female oppression throughout the show drove me to questioning my own thoughts. I realized that maybe I was just craving a good period piece to take me out of reality. Maybe I was dazzled by the elegant dresses because I haven’t worn anything but sweatpants this past year. Maybe it was because I couldn’t remember the last large social event I have been to. Or possibly, the most overarching reason is because it painted a perfect, aesthetically pleasing, gift-wrappedwith-a-bow-on-top picture. It was a reconstructed depiction of the Regency Era for viewership, and I couldn’t blame the producers for doing so. After all, that is what creates the entire allure. When a show is romanticized to such a large extent, it is easier to look past the larger social issues at play. Despite the fact that the series showcased class distinctions, women’s inequality and female prejudice, Bridgerton made sure the real issues

during this era did not overshadow the romantic interests in the series. Would the show be as popular if the steamy moments and the complexities of relationships was not at the forefront? I started to realize how enthralled I had become with the material aspects of historical pieces, rather than the greater historical themes. I started thinking about how lost I got in the fashion of “That ‘70s Show,” the coming of age, sex, drugs and music, that I completely overlooked aspects of the the 70s that made the time period so notable. Yes, the 70s was an era of fashion (bell bottom jeans), disco and political change, but it was also a period filled with economic struggle and racial tension.

“What exactly was I glorifying?” Upon further research, I realized this phenomena is common with a handful of period pieces, whether it be obsessions with those of a similar aesthetic like “The Crown” or “Pride and Prejudice,” or even infatuation with problematic eras like the 1950s as seen with the “Mad Men” fandom. While many period pieces do not entirely ignore or turn a blind eye to the more relevant themes and difficulties of a time period, they do tend to draw a picture of enchantment, charm and nostalgia in an effort to let their viewers blissfully escape the present. Yet, even with this escapism, it became clear to me that despite my intentions to be culturally and socially aware, I very easily fell into the trap: I glorified a time period without taking the implications into account of what that actually means. I don’t know how our present is going to be written in history textbooks. I cannot speculate how the story of this time period will be told. Knowing that there is no singular moment that will define this period, I can only take guesses at what will be the defining moments of this era. However, I think the question of whether or not a time period should be glorified at all, and to what extent, is important. The answer is unclear, but for now, all I can say is that I will enjoy these period pieces with more recognition for what it means to glorify a specific part of any given time period. I will continue to appreciate the elements that make a period piece so captivating, while consciously stopping myself from longing to be a part of them.

statement

16 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A playlist for social progress BY LEAH LESZCZYNSKI, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

I

have a playlist for social progress. From John Lennon and Bob Dylan’s iconic anthems articulating the American experience, to newer albums such as Neil Young’s “Living with War” and Greta Van Fleet’s “Anthem of the Peaceful Army” that reckon with our society’s crises and call for change, music has always played a profound role in the constant battle for social progress. The past 11 months have felt more like Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” and Nina Simone’s “Backlash Blues” than Pete Seeger’s “We Shall Overcome,” and I hit play while contemplating “What’s Going On” and willing that “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Amid the added layers of chaos and uncertainty in modern life stemming from a pandemic and more political turmoil than usual, I listen to my playlist revering more than 60 years of musical brilliance that is quite sympathetic to my pondering of society’s shortcomings. “I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation // Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation, // And marches alone can’t bring integration // When human respect is disintegratin’ // This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’ // And you tell me over and over and over again my friend // Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction” - Barry McGuire, “Eve of Destruction” Between the 1950s and 1970s, the United States was polarized by the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist sexual revolution, the emergence of counterculture and the rebellion of adolescents, the beginning of gay liberation and the modern environmental movement. Further, the ways a person takes a stance on these issues proves to be a statement of one’s ideal world, otherwise known as the theory of cultural cognition, which can exacerbate divides and stunt both social and political progress. In the past year, a multitude of injustices have been thrust into the forefront of public consciousness. Yet, thousands, if not millions, still question the legitimacy of today’s greatest issues, as reflected by instances like the Capitol insurrection, in which people defend the social structures and institutions that have permitted injustices. It seems that both throughout the revolutionary decade of the 60s and today, the issues making headlines have intersected in the ideologies of either aspiring to solve injustices or the alternative of defending the way things are. And all along, throughout this endless struggle for social progress, music has served to empower and unite those on either side, while

reflecting the sociopolitical sentiments of our nation and its people. I wanted to understand the timelessness of the music on my playlist, so I interviewed University of Michigan American Culture professor Stephen Berrey, an expert in 20th century American history, over a Zoom call. During our discussion, Berrey made a point to note the critical fact that during the 60s, the activity for social change originated as grassroots movements. “Social change was coming from ordinary people that were organizing and mobilizing for change,” Berrey explained. “The music began tapping into the idea that (ordinary citizens) can change things. The 60s represent this moment in which, in the air, there is this sense that we should be challenging authority and norms. And the music of the time was reflecting the spirit of change.” Perhaps that is why so much music of the 60s and 70s has found its way into my playlist for social progress. No matter the release date or label of genre, albums and singles from decades ago feel like they could have been cultivated amid the crises thrust onto the national stage in 2020 after gaining steam in city centers across the country. The polarization and obvious corruption, complicated by simultaneous movements for racial, economic, social and environmental justice, produced music that remains a poignant reflection of the United States’ shortcomings and struggles. “Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way // To bring some understanding here today // Picket lines and picket signs // Don’t punish me with brutality // Come on talk to me // So you can see // What’s going on” - Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” Recognizing my risk of sounding nostalgic for the music of a time period I did not live through, I must acknowledge the inclusion of newer music on my playlist that is just as powerful as that of the past. Andrew Bird artfully acknowledges the existential crisis of climate change in “Manifest Destiny” and America’s political circus in “Bloodless.” Beyonce’s “Freedom” became an anthem for the Black Lives Matter Movement. Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” contemplates all the reasons we should question the Catholic Church. There are countless songs, both new and old, questioning our social structures and addressing the evils that America and, in many cases, the world can’t seem to definitively defeat. “Well, the best lack all conviction // And the worst keep sharpening their claws // They’re peddling in their dark fictions // While what’s left of us // Well, we just hem and we haw” Andrew Bird, “Bloodless”

Among the explicitly political music of the 21st century is a wealth of songs rejecting the man that emerged to embody America’s unfinished bigotry and ignorance, former President Donald Trump. Music is inherently political in itself, as are the circumstances and statements of musicians. During the 2016 election, artists joined forces on the project “1,000 Days, 1,000 Songs” to reject, as Franz Ferdinand labels Trump in their contribution to the project, a dangerous “Demagogue.” From “Locker Room Talk” by the Cold War Kids to Death Cab For Cutie’s “Million Dollar Loan,” musicians have responded to Trump’s candidacy and election with more disgusted fervor and illuminating music than previously produced in spite of any other president. Prior to the 2020 election, Demi Lovato condemned Trump’s inaction in “Commander In Chief,’’ and Mt. Joy released a straightforward single titled “New President.” Macklemore’s multitude of songs addressing issues such as same-sex marraige, white privilege and consumerism made his political positions clear long before the summation of America’s greatest evils were elected to the Oval Office. Since then, he has become explicitly critical of the former president, with his poignant reflection of the “Wednesday Morning” on which Trump’s victory was declared and his farewell to his Trump-supporting supporters in the recently released “Trump’s Over Freestyle.” “Humanity is a privilege, we can’t give in // When they build walls, we’ll build bridges // This is resistance, we’re resilient // When they spread hate, we shine brilliant” - Macklemore, “Wednesday Morning” Aside from the release of explicitly anti-Trump art, many musicians have made their political positions very clear since he announced his candidacy in 2016. The Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty’s family and many more took legal action against the campaign, demanding the Trump campaign stop playing their music. In addition to issuing a cease and desist order, CCR’s vocalist John Fogerty publicly expressed his bewilderment that the campaign played the band’s iconic hit “Fortunate Son” that condemns silver-spoon, draft-dodging hypocrites at rallies that celebrate and try to keep one in the Oval Office. There is an incredibly long list of artists — including Axl Rose from Guns N’Roses, Rihanna, Brendon Urie and Adele, just to name a few — who have communicated their scorn for the former president in various types of public statements.

Aside from the campaign, many musicians, including Elton John and Céline Dion, declined to become involved with the 45th president during his presidency. Trump’s Inauguration Committee struggled to find A-listers for his inaugural events, a stark contrast to the star power of this month’s musical offerings supporting the new administration. Obama’s inaugurations featured Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, U2 and Beyonce. Biden’s inaugural events boasted Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga and a New Radicals reunion. These observations made headlines because people acknowledge the power of music and, for reasons good or bad, see these performances as political endorsements. Inaugural performances and Instagram posts are some of the ways musicians have made political statements this past year, and considering the chaos, division and crises, the ageold question of what an artist’s social responsibility is seems more important than ever. But this question is convoluted by the ways the music industry often determines which artists, and thus what music, reach the masses, not to mention the complication of art by the desire for profit. After all, the music industry parallels mankind with a dark history of exploitation, exclusivity, suppression and greed. At the end of the day, I do not know what artists ought to do with their platforms. Over a Zoom call, Kira Thurman, a Germanic Languages and Literatures and History University Professor and a musician, considered this question as we mulled over whether musicians have an obligation to limit their nonmusical business pursuits or pick red or blue: “It may be unanswerable, but we ask it because we recognize the potential of music to transform the world,” Thurman said. Cutting through the complications of this question, Thurman offered an idea that, to me, seems to serve as an answer: “Maybe this is the scary, damning indictment: There is no ‘art for art’s sake.’ Art is socially constructed.” You cannot separate the art from the artist nor from the society it was born out of, and the question of the artist’s social responsibility is inseparable from the actuality that the music speaks for the artist and itself. The greatest responsibility lies in the power of the music. We can argue over the question until another fascist runs for president, but at the end of the day, given the inherently political nature and profound power of music, we ought to critically question, consciously consume and vigorously scrutinize the music we choose to listen to.

That is not to say we must solely submerge ourselves in music that directly addresses the heavy dilemmas of mankind, considering their exacerbation during the past year. To quote The Byrds, “to everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose.” There is great importance in music being fun, playful and filled with enthusiasm for life, even when the value of life and the love of living it are influenced by the realities of willful ignorance, institutional inequality and oppression. Music that does not instantly register as being political is political and socially meaningful nonetheless. Teenage angst, battling inner demons and drug addictions, breakups and body image all find their way into music, and are, of course, crucially important to the individual. Songs like Lizzo’s “Fitness,” Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” and Macklemore’s “Starting Over” inextricably involve the concepts of love, belonging, compassion and courage, and how we value these ideals inform our desires for social change and the politics that shape our world. For obvious reasons that are eloquently expressed and best understood by the songs themselves, music is incredibly powerful and influential. It reflects and challenges us, teaches, empowers, explains, inspires and aids us. In all of its profound power, it affects how and who we choose to be in the world, and thus, how we change it. “Read the news, there’s something every day // So many people thinking different ways, you say // Where is the music? // A tune to free the soul // A simple lyric to unite us all, you know” - Greta Van Fleet, “Anthem” Looking at the current state of affairs, it is quite easy to claim we are at the “Eve of Destruction.” The consequences of humankind’s vices, taking form in corruption and injustice and resulting in unnecessary suffering and death, are depressing and daunting. But hope and working for change today is the only path leading to a better tomorrow, and music will always play a profound part in inspiring, empowering and affirming these endeavors. So, tuning out all the noise and turning the volume up, I hit shuffle on my paramount playlist, and from Neil Young’s “Love and War,” to Harry Chapin’s “What Made America Famous?”, from John Lennon’s “Imagine” to The Youngblood’s “Get Together,” from Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to Greta Van Fleet’s “Black Smoke Rising” and the many, many masterpieces in between, I let the music open my mind and soothe my soul with unwavering hope and trust in that “A Change is Gonna Come.”

Sports

17 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A week on, Michigan’s athletic department shutdown makes even less sense Nine days ago, Michigan’s athletic department issued a 14-day shutdown of all University athletic activities due to the detection of cases of the more contagious B.1.1.7 COVID19 variant within the athletic department. At the time, the directive THEO seemed to be MACKIE an unnecessary blanket response to a targeted issue. The new variant of COVID-19 was discovered in a handful of teams, so teams that had no COVID-19 cases at all also had to shut down? Despite teams not having contact with one another? All while the rest of the state went about life with minimal restrictions? Since then, we’ve learned a little bit more about how the decision came into being. It was technically a “recommendation” from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, not an order. Understandably, though, the University viewed it as an order. A public university ignoring a cut-and-dry, stop-it-now directive from its own state government is a non-starter, no matter what label you use. We’ve also learned that the University proposed only affected teams be isolated. That would’ve enabled Michigan’s moneymakers — men’s basketball, women’s basket-

LUKE HALES/Daily

With restaurants re-opening a week into the athletic department’s pause, many are left to question the state’s approach to COVID-19.

ball and hockey all of which had no COVID-19 cases as of last weekend — to keep playing. The state refused. Teams were sent scrambling to make socially-distanced travel arrangements back from away competitions. Players were resigned to their apartments for two weeks, unable to work out or practice in team facilities. Both of those realizations serve to absolve the University of blame. What they don’t do is make the state’s directive any more logical. “While U-M has worked diligently on testing and reporting within state and Big Ten Conference g uidelines, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is mandating a more aggressive strateg y for this B.1.1.7

variant, which exceeds current program efforts designed around the standard form of the virus,” the University said in a release on Jan. 23. Here’s the thing: The state isn’t mandating a more aggressive strateg y for the B.1.1.7 variant anywhere outside of the Michigan athletic department. And that’s the problem. If the state cared about preventing the spread of the new variant, it would have enacted wide-scale lockdowns. A year of evidence from around the world shows that’s the only way to actually stem COVID19. If the state didn’t care about preventing the spread, it should’ve let teams without positive cases continue playing. Because ultimately, they’re the same as everyone else in the community who

What the 14-day pause means for women’s basketball NICK MOEN

Daily Sports Writer

On Thursday, Michigan lost its first game of the season, falling 77-81 to Ohio State. Junior forward Naz Hillmon had a historic performance with 50 points, but the Wolverines couldn’t find the win in the end. In a normal season, the first loss would sting for a few days only to be forgotten after the next game. But this isn’t a typical season. Michigan’s defeat may linger a little longer as the Wolverines embark on a 14-day pause due to positive cases of the novel COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant within the Michigan athletic department. The directive is just one of a string of obstacles Michigan has already faced. In fact, it isn’t even the first break the team’s dealt with. The Wolverines faced a 22-day break in December after canceling games against Illinois and Penn State in accordance with COVID-19 protocols. When Michigan returned on Dec. 31 against Wisconsin, it seemed as though they hadn’t missed a beat, defeating them, 92-49, with only eight players eligible. The Wolverines struggled to field a full team against Northwestern too. Conditions worsened against Nebraska on Jan. 7, when junior guard Leigha Brown, the team’s second-leading scorer, was absent due to COVID-19 protocols. The break will mean that the Wolverines will miss important games against Purdue, two against Michigan State, Rutgers, Minnesota and Maryland. If everything goes to plan, Michigan can return on Feb. 11 against Purdue. Since November, the Wolverines have been preparing for an unconventional season — temporary shutdowns seemed likely from the start. “We saw that basketball could actually be taken away, and we

were disappointed with the way that the season finished last year,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said on Nov. 25 following Michigan’s win over Central Michigan, their first game of the season. “We didn’t get to play in the NCAA Tournament. We thought we had an awesome squad returning but we are so happy with the ability to be able to play today.” Although the team has faced ineligibility due to COVID19 protocols in the past, as of Saturday, the team didn’t have any active cases. The majority of the Wolverines’ starters have remained healthy to this point and a pause like this could allow for Leigha Brown to return without missing any more games. Even though Michigan is on pause now, the team understands that COVID-19 can still impact the remainder of the season. “We understand that this is a different year, unprecedented times and we’re just really focusing on next man up,” junior forward Naz Hillmon said Jan. 3 following Michigan’s win over Northwestern. “We have numbers called being there ready to play and we really try to not take our games for granted. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” In what has thus far been Barnes Arico’s most successful season in her nine years with the Wolverines, Michigan’s experience has come to the fore. The Wolverines were undefeated before their matchup against Ohio State, currently sitting at No. 12 in the most recent AP Poll. Core players like Hillmon, junior guard Amy Dilk and fifthyear senior Akienreh Johnson have all stepped up only for their future as a Wolverine to be uncertain. Michigan has already proven this team is capable of anything when healthy. Once the pause is lifted, the Wolverines will try to continue their strong start. Right now, it’s just a question of when — and if — Michigan can get back on the court.

hasn’t been exposed to the new variant. Instead, nine days of inaction from the state has revealed the forced shutdown of Michigan’s athletic department to be little more than a PR stunt. On Wednesday, Washtenaw County issued a stay-at-home recommendation for Michigan students. What happens if students don’t follow the recommendation? According to the Washtenaw County Health Department, that would force more recommendations. In a shock to absolutely nobody, the recommendation has proved meaningless, because it carries no repercussions. On Monday, restaurants and bars will be allowed to open for indoor dining, even though maskless, indoor activities

create a perfect environment for COVID-19 to spread. So does the state really care about stemming this new variant or was last week’s directive truly a PR stunt? Its actions — or lack thereof — in the last week indicate the latter. And if you find yourself looking at the CDC dashboard and thinking, ‘Hey, there are only 22 recorded cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in Michigan,’ consider the parallels to March. Testing reveals the variant is virtually non-existent, yet it’s still shown up in multiple Michigan counties and is present in 30 U.S. states. As of Sunday, there have been 467 reported cases in the country. For comparison’s sake, there were 403 report-

ed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. on March 7. Two weeks later, there were 26,025 cases. Without real restrictions, the B.1.1.7 variant can and will chart a similar course. If the state really wanted to curb the variant’s spread, the blueprint is in place to do so. Instead, it’s opted for a halfbaked approach that helps no one. This means that if Michigan athletics return to action next week as they’re currently scheduled to, they’ll return to a community with more spread of the B.1.1.7 variant than there was a week ago. Eventually, odds are that someone else in the athletic department will contract the variant because the spread hasn’t been stemmed within the larger community. By that point, though, the Michigan athletic department won’t be the state’s B.1.1.7 epicenter. Yet another new definition of normalcy will arrive. The PR value of taking faux action will be gone. The men’s and women’s basketball teams will head off to the NCA A Tournament. When they get there, it may be too late. Their seasons may have been derailed by two weeks off practice. Even if not, seniors will have still lost two weeks of their f leeting college careers. Eleven months into the pandemic, that’s the cost of PR. Mackie can be reached at tmackie@umich.edu or on Twitter @theo_ mackie.

Despite unusual season, women’s rowing makes headway ABBY SNYDER

Daily Sports Writer

It’s still early on a crisp fall morning in Ann Arbor, the sun just starting to peek through the fog, the dew settling into the still-green grass. As the city begins to wake up, the Michigan women’s rowing team has long since started their day. The coxswains’ cries of encouragement rise above the constant whir of ergometer fans, set in formation on the field, six feet apart in the shadow of the Michigan Stadium’s Block ‘M.’ When the pandemic hit and canceled the remaining 11 regattas of the Wolverines’ 2020 spring racing season, it came as a shock to the team. But since then, with pandemic protocols in place, they have not let the strong headwind that is COVID19 prevent them from making headway on their goals. “It’s been a big change for everybody,” Michigan coach Mark Rothstein said. “Those have been some big changes, though — imagine rowing in a mask; it can get pretty uncomfortable, especially during the hard workouts.” Rowing is a sport that relies on team chemistry to a degree that few others do. If one rower is even a fraction of a beat offrhythm, just the slightest bit offbalance, the boat can rock back and forth or oars can catch crabs underwater, amongst other things that can happen to slow the boat down. With social distancing still firmly in place, the Wolverines have had to find other ways to bond as a team. “We’ve all had to rely on reaching out to each other a lot more, because last year, you could go up to your friend after a workout and give them a pat on the back or just say hello and physically be there,” sophomore Elena Collier-Hezel said. “This

ALEC COHEN/Daily

The Wolverines are finding creative ways to adapt its team culture and training to the pandemic.

year, the biggest difference is that we can’t really see a lot of our teammates at one time, so we have to reach out to each other more, and when we get the opportunity, saying, ‘Hey, I’m here, hope you’re doing well.’ ” It’s been particularly tough on the underclassmen: the freshmen, because their first season of college rowing (not to mention their first year of college) is abnormal beyond anything they could’ve imagined; the sophomores, because they are yet to have a first season under their belts, having had every spring race canceled. As a result, the juniors and especially the seniors are stepping up to perpetuate the team atmosphere that was a key factor in many of these women’s decisions to come to Michigan. “Our biggest strength as a team is our team culture,” fifth-year starboard Madison Byrd said. “It’s just taking advantage of those moments where we’re putting the boats in the bays, or during water breaks, those are really the only times you’re going to have in close proximity together, so just taking advantage of that. “As a senior class, we’ve really had to just keep the main

thing the ‘main thing,’ which is training to win and win for Michigan.” Confident in the bonds his team can create, even in a pandemic year, Rothstein is focusing on making sure that the Wolverines are still on track to the lofty goals he’s set for them. The bar is high: Michigan won the Big Ten in 2019 and placed third at the NCAA championship the same year. And it turns out that, as grueling as the rowing workouts tend to be, there have been a few pluses to this very negative year. The team has had more chances to get out on the water, thanks to a few unseasonably warm winter days. Also, working out at the Big House, on the field and under the lights, is undeniably cool. For the coxswains, whose job is to steer the boat and spur the rowers on, encouragement and motivation have taken on a new meaning this year, spurring a new approach. “I’m usually a pretty big hard-ass 100% of the time,” senior coxswain Charlotte Powers said. “But especially with COVID, the importance of positivity and keeping everyone’s attitudes up has been super important because it’s

obviously really hard for them both mentally and physically. So I just think keeping that mindset of ‘we’re on the water, we’re getting to practice, we’re here still’ is huge. It’s way more ‘let’s enjoy this and let’s keep using this as a building block.’ ” It’s been an effective adjustment — there’s a sense of gratitude in these rowers’ voices, an appreciation for the chance to compete at the sport they love, no matter what it looks like. “We had to keep reminding ourselves that we are here to win a national championship, so as long as that’s still on the table, we’ll go through anything,” Byrd said. “Keeping our eyes on the prize — I know it’s kind of cliché, but keeping our hearts and our minds focused on training for Michigan so that, come May, we can win for Michigan has been what we’ve been trying to keep at the forefront of our minds. “Just because of a new change that might come our way, or a new protocol, or new rules or something else gets taken away, we have to remember that we’re not here for the gear or the free meals. We’re here to represent the Block ‘M.’ So always coming back to that, in spite of whatever difficulty we’re facing, that’s been crucial for us.”

Sports

18 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Johnson’s defensive prowess proves vital to Michigan’s high-flying team

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wolverine bench sparks their team on and off the court TEDDY GUTKIN

Daily Sports Writer

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

Michigan guard Akienreh Johnson brings a unique contribution to the team’s roster of players.

ABBIE TELGENHOF Daily Sports Writer

Akienreh Johnson does it all. The fifth-year senior guard has been an integral part of the No. 13 Michigan women’s basketball team’s 10-1 start to the season. While junior forward Naz Hillmon usually takes the spotlight with her perennially dominant outings, Johnson uses her experience to fill in the gaps on both ends of the floor. On the offensive end, her scoring ability is a valuable asset to the Wolverines’ attack. She averages 11.8 points per game, good enough to be the team’s third-leading scorer. Given the recent absence of junior guard Leigha Brown, Michigan’s second-leading scorer, Johnson has stepped up to fill the void. In the last three games, she’s averaged 15 points. Johnson’s aggressive nature is a defining characteristic of her offense — it creates trips

to the free-throw line and sparks momentum for the Wolverines. When offensive production is lagging, Johnson’s not afraid to get in the lane and make something happen. Her ability to drive and dish is an important facet of Michigan’s offense and averaging three assists per game, she works well with Hillmon down low. Defensively, Johnson is arguably Michigan’s biggest asset. She often guards opposing teams’ top guards and has been successful in keeping them contained. Against Wisconsin, she held guard Sydney Hilliard, who averages 17 points per game on the season, to just one point. “(Johnson) doesn’t get a ton of credit all the time for the things that she does that don’t show up in the box score, but she guards the other team’s best player and she takes that to heart,” Wolverines’ coach Kim Barnes Arico said after the game against the Badgers on Jan. 14. “(Johnson) was

guarding (Hilliard) tonight, and (Hilliard) didn’t score a point on her. She came out of the game and I just said, ‘unbelievable.’ ” Johnson has also contributed to Michigan’s number one ranking in rebounding in the Big Ten, averaging 5.8 per game. Being a tall guard standing at 6-foot-0, she crashes boards and assists Hillmon in keeping the ball away from opposing teams. “Akienreh Johnson is, I think the best defender in the Big Ten, one of the best defenders in the country,” Barnes Arico said after the Northwestern game on Jan. 3. “She’s up to every challenge, and she does a great job of really locking in.” Overall, her numbers aren’t flashy, in fact, they’re comparable to the rest of the starters on the team. But Johnson’s ability to do a little of everything is what keeps her on the floor. She reads the floor well and fills in where other players lack, making her invaluable in the lineup.

Blankenburg quietly produces for ‘M’ defense JOSH TAUBMAN

Daily Sports Writer

The spotlight often eludes Nick Blankenburg. The junior defenseman is overlooked in Michigan’s star-studded defensive group. Freshman Owen Power is the potential number one overall pick in next year’s NHL draft. Sophomore Cam York captained the USA World Juniors team that won gold last month. But despite the lack of recognition, Blankenburg still finds a way to thrive. “I don’t think that bothers Nick at all,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said. “He just plays. There’s not much that rattles him, he’s just a hockey player.” During his freshman year, Blankenburg had just two goals and eight assists but led the Wolverines in plus-minus at plus-11. Last season, he produced more offensively — putting up four goals and 12 assists — but his plus-minus was down significantly at plus3. This year, he’s putting it all together. Through sixteen games, Blankenburg has four goals and seven assists, and those 11 points are good enough for third among all Big Ten defensemen. He also boasts a plus-minus of plus-12, the second best on the team.

“He skates, adds offense, plays hard (and) physical,” Pearson said. “And he’s just engaged. I don’t know if I’ve ever had to tell him to pick it up.” Blankenburg has become a workhorse for Michigan and developed into a two-way threat. He’s found a home on a line with Power and the pair complement each other well. They have boosted the Wolverines’ power play — each contributing two goals on the man advantage. “I’ve really liked playing with him,” Power said on Nov. 24. “He’s such a good skater; so quick and so fast. We can both play tight, stay up on the forwards and have trust in each other where if one of us gets beat, we could help them.” Throughout his career, Blankenburg has always carried a subtle confidence to his game. He never gets caught up with the distractions or complains about his role. He puts his head down and grinds. “He just loves playing the game,” Pearson said. “He just comes to the rink and does his job and plays hard every day. There’s no attitude, there’s no cockiness to him. And there’s no entitlement to him, he just comes in and plays and that’s what makes him so special.” Those characteristics have made a lasting impression on his teammates and are

why they voted him alternate captain this year. Adding Blankenburg to the leadership group has been important for keeping the team together as they navigate a season through the COVID-19 pandemic. However, if there’s one knock on Blankenburg’s game this season, it’s the amount of penalties he’s taken. In 35 games last year, he only committed seven penalties. This year, he’s already up to six. But Pearson isn’t deterred by Blankenburg spending more time in the box. He thinks that the penalties are more a by-product of Blankenburg’s highly competitive nature than a sign of undisciplined play. “I’ve had to tell him to relax and calm down a little bit because he goes after it so hard,” Pearson said. “Sometimes he gets wound up and he really gets into it.” Blankenburg may never garner the attention or the awards that some of his teammates get. But his work ethic and the consistent effort he brings has earned the respect of his teammates and his coaches, and the team knows he’s vital to the Wolverines success. “(He’s) as tough — pound for pound — as anybody maybe in our league, maybe in college hockey,” Pearson said. “He might be our most valuable player.”

RYAN LITTLE/Daily

Michigan defenseman Nick Blankenburg quietly commands his defense amongst more talented players.

Senior forward Chaundee Brown Jr. elevated for a putback slam, putting the finishing touches on a dominant 77-54 win for the Michigan men’s basketball team on Jan. 12. As Brown dismounted from the rim, the bench went into a frenzy, jumping and screaming as if to turn Crisler Center into a rocking full house for just a few short moments. This scene is one of many examples of the energy the Wolverines’ second unit has brought to coach Juwan Howard’s club this season. Even when the starters are on the floor, the bench has created somewhat of a spectacle on the sidelines. Led by Jace Howard, the self-proclaimed “Bench Mob” has become an unmistakable and essential sight of every Michigan game. “It really helps having an engaged bench, and I think it makes everything a lot more fun,” sophomore wing Franz Wagner said after the win against the Badgers. As effective as their passion is off the court, the bench has also provided consistent production, making Michigan one of the deepest teams in the nation. Brown, in particular, has fit in seamlessly in his first campaign in Ann Arbor, averaging 8.8 points per game and shooting just under 40% from the 3-point range, while also emerging as one of the top perimeter defenders in the Big Ten. Even though he was a threeyear starter at Wake Forest, Brown understands his role as a spark plug off the bench at Michigan. “Coach Howard always talks about sacrificing,” Brown said

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

Michigan guard Zeb Jackson helps keep the team’s spirits up.

after an 80-58 win over UCF. “We’re sacrificing a lot of things that on other teams, we would’ve been star players or starting but we’re taking a second role on a winning team. We’re just always ready.” The Wolverines’ bench production doesn’t end with Brown. Junior forward Brandon Johns Jr. has proven to be a serviceable backup ‘5’ off the bench and is shooting 63% from 3-point range. Freshman forward Terrance Williams and freshman guard Zeb Jackson have helped to provide energy in their first collegiate campaigns, and senior forward/center Austin Davis has built off last year’s breakout season after returning from a plantar fasciitis injury. “We have a very deep team,” Howard said after the win over UCF. “Our thing is all hands on deck. And game-by-game, it’s always being evaluated on what’s giving us the bench chance. But we’re gonna need everyone this season, it’s that simple. I’ll make sure everyone gets the chance to play.”

On Dec. 31 in an 84-73 win Maryland, the Wolverines went on a 31-9 second half run, in part due to an impressive defensive showing. After the game, though, Howard gave credit not only to the players on the court during the run, but also the energy brought by his reserves on the sidelines. “I give all the credit to the defense, and I also give all the credit to those guys that were sitting on the bench bringing that energy,” Howard said after the game. “And that’s what keyed our run. The defensive disposition and also the energy from the guys that hadn’t even checked into the game or the guys that were taking a breather that were sitting on the bench, breathing life into the players that were on the floor.” Even when they aren’t playing, Michigan’s “Bench Mob” is finding ways to affect the game. With a tough Big Ten slate awaiting the Wolverines once play resumes, the bench will surely continue to bring the energy and, more importantly, be ready to contribute on the floor when their numbers are called.

Power enjoys impressive season away from Canadian spotlight JACK KINGSLEY

Daily Sports Editor

Owen Power knew the expectations on him this season were lofty. Coming into the season as a potential top pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, the freshman defenseman’s star only shone brighter following a three-point performance in his Michigan debut. In the nine games that followed, though, Power registered only a single assist. Despite his low offensive output, Power never looked out of place in the college game — he’s a highly-touted prospect for a reason. He was still one of the Wolverines’ best defensemen even as his offensive game lagged a bit behind. It’s fair to wonder if all of the potential distractions Power faced in the first half of the season ever got in his head. On top of the draft, the controversy over whether or not Power would be attending Canada’s World Juniors camp proved to be a constant talking point. “I think the decision to have me stay here and play was fine,” Power told reporters on Jan. 11. “I think either way it was a good decision. So I think just being able to stay here and kind of just develop with the team was a good decision.” Power said all the right things about not attending World Juniors and has said the draft has not been

a distraction, but his play in the second half of the season tells a different story. The combination of an extended break, extra practice time and the experience Power has gained is likely behind his improvement, but it’s fair to assume that the lack of World Junior’s chatter has played a role. “There were a lot of distractions, and we have to make sure that we really put that behind us and the outside noise and just focus in on our team,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said. “We do that (and) I think you’ll see a real good second half.” While Pearson was talking about the team as a whole, Power has epitomized his sentiment, especially offensively. In the six games since the Wolverines returned from their break, Power has accumulated eight points. While plus/minus doesn’t fully convey a player’s impact, Power is a plus-8 in those six games. In Michigan’s first 10 games, he was a plus-1, which is telling. The biggest difference for Power lies in getting more shots through. He has put multiple shots on net in six of the Wolverines’ last nine games, after doing so just twice in their first seven. This change has forced opposing teams to respect his shot even more in the offensive zone, opening up chances for his teammates. And Power has learned how to take advantage of that.

In a Jan. 22 win against Notre Dame, Power showed just how dangerous he can be when teams view him as a shooting threat. With the puck at the point, Power convincingly faked a shot, drawing the attention of multiple Fighting Irish players and leaving senior forward Michael Pastujov open at the right circle. Power dished it off and Pastujov converted. Power’s evolution into a consistent offensive threat has also paid dividends for Michigan’s power play, with Power’s unit scoring four goals on the man advantage since the break. “We lean on (the freshmen) a little bit more in the second half because they know the expectations and the standards of our program now and how hard it is in the Big Ten,” Pearson said. “When you first start you have to be careful with them.” Transitioning to the college game is difficult for any player, even one of Power’s stature. The players are older and more experienced and the games are more physical. Add the potential of being the first overall pick in the upcoming NHL Draft and it makes sense that other players have stolen the spotlight in the first half. But now, with all the possible distractions in the rearview mirror and 16 games under his belt, Power continues to show, game after game, why those expectations were so high in the first place.

RYAN LITTLE/Daily

Michigan defenseman Owen Power has come into his own after the beginning of the second part of the season.

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Wednesday, February 3, 2021 — 19

How coaches around the country dealt with their own COVID-19 outbreaks CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Editor

On Dec. 23, third-ranked Villanova dominated Big East foe, Marquette, to move to 8-1 on the season. Four days later, the Wildcats announced that coach Jay Wright and another staff member had tested positive for COVID-19. Despite pausing practice and all basketball activities in the wake of the news, issues persisted within the program over the next two weeks. Villanova was forced to postpone four games — without makeup dates set. Every time it seemed like the Wildcats could come back, another positive case sent them back to square one. Villanova finally returned to action on Jan. 19, narrowly escaping against Seton Hall, 76-74 — 27 days after beating the Golden Eagles. Whatever momentum the Wildcats had built at the start of the season had seemingly dissipated. “We got lucky against Seton Hall,” Wright said. “... We weren’t in rhythm.”

Faced with a lengthy layoff of its own, the No. 7 Michigan men’s basketball team hopes to avoid a similar dropoff when — and if — it resumes play. Despite not having any positive tests of their own, the Wolverines are currently in the midst of a 14-day shut down after the novel B.1.1.7 strain was detected within Michigan’s athletic department. Regardless of whether the Wolverines’ stoppage is slightly misplaced, the interruption is just another example of how the pandemic has disrupted college basketball’s regular season. “I get our report every morning on our drug tests,” Wright told reporters on Wednesday. “(Director of Program Administration Arleshia Davidson) usually texts me ‘All negative’ with all smiley faces and I send back prayer signs. “But if she calls me, I’m telling you my heart’s pounding.”

Colorado coach Tad Boyle summed it up well earlier this year: “You live day by day, sometimes hour by hour.” Villanova and the Wolverines have not been the only ranked programs with multi-week interruptions. In early December, the Buffaloes paused basketball operations

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Michigan coach Juwan Howard isn’t alone facing an extended break.

‘M’ hires Inge and Merriman to fill assistant spots JACK WHITTEN

Daily Sports Writer

The Michigan baseball team still faces several unknowns, like when its season will start and how many games it will play, but its coaching staff is now locked in. Two coaching jobs became open when former pitching coach Chris Fetter took a pitching coach position with the Detroit Tigers and former volunteer assistant Ako Thomas took a coaching job with the Red Sox Double-A affiliate. Michigan coach Erik Bakich officially filled them last Friday, when the team announced that Steve Merriman, who was the pitching coach at Michigan in 2002 and 2012, will take over as pitching coach and Brandon Inge as volunteer assistant. Both have decades of baseball experience as well as expertise in the use and application of technology and data in coaching. As part of a diligent search process that included a month and a half of research, Bakich called Merriman for his advice on who would be a good fit to succeed Fetter. Given Merriman’s position, Bakich assumed a return to Ann Arbor was unlikely. At the time, Merriman — “a leading voice in modern training methodologies and data-enhanced coaching,” according to mlb.com’s Thomas Harding — was the minor league pitching co-coordinator of the Colorado Rockies, and Bakich thought he was on the “fast track” to a coaching position at the mothership. He already had experience coaching at the major league level: in early 2020, Merriman helped create and operate a pitching lab at the Rockies’ spring training facility, where he used Rapsodo technologies to analyze Rockies’ starters. “So when he said that he would have interest, I was so excited, because he was one of those no-brainer type of candidates,” Bakich said. Merriman was among the three final candidates, each of whom met with players in Zoom meetings.

“He had a little bit of a unique approach,” Bakich said. “Instead of putting together some type of PowerPoint with a bunch of information, he just took a few minutes in the beginning of the call with each guy to get to know them and ask them questions. A really personal touch, and they really appreciated that. “Starting about 12 minutes in, I got the first text that this is our guy. And by the end of the Zoom call, all of them were just thrilled at the opportunity to potentially work with coach Merriman.” In addition to his skills in cutting-edge coaching techniques, Merriman has other qualities that Bakich wants in his pitching coach. Merriman is renowned for his skills as a communicator, for example. “If I have questions, he can relay the information in a way I understand it,” Rockies’ starter Jon Gray said in an interview with mlb.com. Merriman will play a vital in-game role, too, creating game plans and calling pitches. Bakich said Merriman’s experience as a pitching coach and scout will help him attack opposing hitters’ weaknesses and develop his pitchers’ strengths. *** To stay at the game’s highest level for 13 years, Brandon Inge had to do “all the little things,” Bakich said. He was a super-utility player, a Swiss Army knife who played every position besides pitcher (although he threw gas as a closer in college). He was equally versatile on offense, hitting for average (0.287 in 2004), power (27 homers in 2006 and 2009) and stealing bases (nine in 2007). Bakich got to know Inge when the two worked together to chair the ChadTough Foundation Gala last May. “I was super impressed in these planning committees for the event of what a good dude he is,” Bakich said. “He’s so generous with his time in serving the community that he’s a part of.”

after starting the season 2-0. Clemson, which was 9-1 and ranked in the top-25 at the time, had to postpone games against North Carolina and Syracuse due to cases within the Tigers’ program. “It’s frustrating a little bit, certainly,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said at the time.

The financial security from a long and lucrative career made Inge an even more attractive candidate for the largely unpaid position, especially given that the COVID-19 pandemic would make finding a second job for a volunteer assistant more difficult. But Bakich said that even without a pandemic, Inge would be his first choice for the opening. “Maybe the best thing about him is that he’s one of those old school throwback, tough, competitive, gritty types of guys, a ‘put your nose in the dirt and get it done’ kind of guy,” Bakich (who’s considered to be one of those types as well) said. “You can tell if you were one of his teammates, you’d love being on his team. And if you weren’t, you probably didn’t like playing against him.” Inge may be an old-school guy, but he’s embraced new-school coaching methods. Like the rest of the Michigan coaching staff, he holds a certification from the Titleist Performance Institute. He’s especially knowledgeable about the physiology of hitting. He’ll mainly work with the catchers but will also assist assistant head coach Nick Schnabel in coaching the hitters. “He can throw BP all day long,” Bakich said. “And the information he has regarding hitting is extremely valuable, being a guy who’s reinvented his swing and has a lot of great ideas on what type of approaches to certain pitchers will help.” Both coaches have made large contributions in their first few weeks on the job. “(Merriman) is seeing efficient movement patterns in guys, and some limitations that they may have physically, and creating corrections to make their delivery or certain pitches just a little bit better,” Bakich said. And Inge noticed some pitchers accidentally tipping their pitches during a scrimmage before the athletic department’s two-week shutdown. “I’m just glad both those guys are on our team,” Bakich said.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach Erik Bakich hired Brandon Inge and Steve Merriman to join the team as assistants.

“More disappointing. … We were coming off a great win, and we were just excited to go to Chapel Hill and play North Carolina. Our kids were really disappointed on Friday when we took them off the court and said, ‘Hey, we can’t go.’ “Guys are playing well and they want to play. When you have rhythm and you’re in a good space, that’s when you want to keep playing. If things aren’t going well, maybe a pause can be good for you. So, this will be a test for us.” The Tigers lost their first three games upon returning to the court by a combined 72 points. So far, the way teams have responded to prolonged breaks has proven to be a mixed bag. From the very start though, many coaches, like Wright and Michigan coach Juwan Howard, have emphasized the importance of player safety. Now more than ever, how players fare off the court takes precedence over how they fare

on it. That’s just the reality of playing basketball during a pandemic. “For us, this year, titles and things like that aren’t really going to carry much weight,” Wright said. “We want these guys to stay mentally healthy, physically healthy and get through as many games as they can. … Everybody’s just trying to do their best.” Barring another stoppage, the Wolverines can return to the court on Feb. 7. In the meantime, Howard will hope his red-hot team can come out unscathed and undeterred on the other end. At the very least, he can look around the country and realize he’s not alone. “So much of it comes down to what the doctors let them do during quarantine and where your team is,” Wright said. “... Usually it’s all about the team, but this year it’s about each guy individually and where they are. “I’m sure Juwan knows his guys and is going to do a great job.”

Deconditioning looms over

Wolverine swimmers’ NCAA hopes CONNOR EAREGOOD

Daily Sports Writer

A deconditioning cycle like the Michigan swim and dive teams’ will experience during the University’s 14-day freeze on athletics could set the Wolverines back significantly after weeks of heavy training. For the seniors who already lost an NCAA Championship appearance last year, that deconditioning could jeopardize their last shot. The suspension of athletics means the Wolverines will be limited to exercises they can conduct under quarantine. No g yms. No weight rooms. No pools. That shift in conditioning poses a huge problem as both Michigan squads look to complete their seasons. With dual meets against Ohio State postponed and the Big Ten Championship looming on the horizon, the pause puts a premium on Michigan’s remaining time. “At this point, every training session counts, and any more lost time will lead to more losses in fitness and thus more losses in performance,” Dr. Adam Lepley, a School of Kinesiolog y assistant professor, told The Daily in an email. “That is also not to mention any potential injuries suffered due to an accelerated timeline and training schedule, which could set individuals back further.” Lepley explained that cardiovascular f itness levels can decline in just a few days, let alone a 14-day span. However, the f itness level of the athletes before the pause could be their saving g race from cardiovascular deconditioning, which affects ever y thing from oxygen usage to the amount of blood pumped by one contraction. Once the pause is over, the No. 5 women’s swim and dive team and the divers of the No. 9 men’s squad will have less than 17 days to prepare before

they travel to their respective conference championship locations on Feb. 24. With a few more days to prepare, the men’s swimmers will race to defend a Big Ten title they earned last season on Mar. 3. It could prove difficult for the teams to get back into optimal shape even if everything goes well. This assumes that the team will work taper time into its schedule to improve its chances at the Big Ten Championship, a three-horse race between Michigan, Indiana and Ohio State. The postponed double date with the Buckeyes’ swim and dive teams could find itself played out somewhere in that 17-day span, too. While there have been no announcements of cancellation, the Wolverines might have trouble fitting that into their possibly chaotic return to practice. If those dual meets are canceled, Michigan could miss out on a key scouting op before everything ’s on the line. If the Wolverines’ backs weren’t already against the wall with the density of their schedule, the teams could find their reconditioning time slashed even further should the University extend the pause. The Wolverines’ cycles of heav y training before the quarantine could lessen their likely losses coming out of the freeze, easing the physical challenges and allowing the team to recover its progress. But training hurdles aren’t the only barriers the Wolverines will need to jump. After months of dedicated work, the Wolverines will have ample time to ponder their situation before the championship marathon. “Mentally, it’s way more difficult,” men’s swim alumnus Felix Auböck said. “(A 14-day pause) has never been done before the biggest meet.” The constant testing of Michigan’s perseverance

could prove helpful down the stretch as younger Wolverines near their final meets. “(The pause) is one of the biggest challenges they will face in their college career,” Auböck said. “They will come out of it stronger.” But for those whose college careers end with this season, the championship sequence could serve as a farewell tour. Seniors whose NCA A Championship hopes were dashed with the cancellation of the NCA A meet last March now find their final chances threatened by the effects of the pause, including Ross Todd, Gus Borges, Daria Pyshnenko and Will Roberts. Pyshnenko, a 10-time AllAmerican, won multiple events for the women’s team already this season. Her times, though, have not broken the plane to enter the NCA A Championship, dictated by making the “A” or “B” cut times to get a spot in each race because the training regimen for swimming was built towards getting faster as the season progresses. The Big Ten Championship could be her only opportunity to qualif y, adding extra meaning to her performance coming out of quarantine. On the diving side, Todd has already met the NCA A standards in the 1 and 3-meter dives. However, the two-week gap could add difficulty to repeating his Big Ten Championship success of last season, a meet in which he earned Co-Diver of the Championships honors. Not everyone is pessimistic, however. The break could only add coal to the fire that has fueled the Wolverines all season. “(Borges and Todd) will be f ine,” Auböck said. “They are so experienced and world-class athletes. Especially Ross in diving is a perfectionist. It should not be a problem for them to qualif y.”

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan will struggle with its conditioning at the upcoming Big Ten meet because of the lack of training time.

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Michigan lacrosse: The Club Years DREW COX

Daily Sports Editor

As a Midwestern youth in the 1980s, John Paul was one of the few in Ann Arbor to be fascinated by the sport of lacrosse. And what started out as a backyard game for Paul to play with his friends became a collegiate commitment, a professional career and, above all, an unparalleled lifelong passion. The first time John Paul tried to start a lacrosse program, he was shot down. In the early 1980s, Paul was a student at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. Like most athletic, Midwestern teenagers of his decade, he spent his after-school hours playing football in the fall and basketball in the winter. Paul’s spring seasons were always unfilled, though. Paul knew about lacrosse and casually played from time to time. He grew up with the sons of fabled Michigan club lacrosse coach Bob DiGiovanni, who revived the previously defunct program with his friends in 1965 and intermittently coached the team in the 1970s. But playing the game competitively was never an option for Paul growing up. Pioneer — like most high schools west of the Appalachians at the time — didn’t have a program for the traditionally East Coast sport, and the high school’s athletic department rejected his attempt to field his own team. So when Paul weighed his options for college, he knew he wanted to go somewhere he could play lacrosse. Albion College, less than an hour from Ann Arbor, had a student-run club team of its own, and when Paul enrolled in the fall of 1984, he jumped at the opportunity to play and took to the sport quickly. Paul ultimately left Albion after two years due to academic struggles and returned to work in Ann Arbor from 1986 to 1990, taking classes at Washtenaw Community College while he regained his bearings. Meanwhile, Paul kept up with lacrosse by playing for Michigan’s club team. At the time, non-students were allowed to play for the University’s club sports teams, so the roster was mostly made up of young Ann Arbor residents like Paul, as well as graduate students. DiGiovanni, who became Michigan’s full-time head coach a year prior to Paul’s arrival, was committed to changing the tone of the program by upping the level of accountability and enlisting undergraduates who would bring it to new heights. As a threeyear captain during this period, Paul served as a key leader who set the bar for the newer, younger players. “Like any older player, (I was) just at that time leading by showing them what it took to be good at what you do,” Paul said. “It was trying to do things the right way and hoping that others would follow.” After a year-long stint with the Detroit Turbos of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (rebranded as the National Lacrosse League in 1997), Paul returned to Michigan in 1992, this time as an admitted student, where he finished his bachelor’s degree and played one last season with the Wolverines. Following graduation, Paul secured a fundraising position in the Michigan athletic department, which he held for four years before transitioning to an adjacent role in the university’s College of Literature, Science & the Arts. For the first time in a while, things were steady for Paul. He had recently married his wife, Lisa, was happily settled in the town he grew up in and had a job working for an institution he loved. It appeared as if he was content. But then an opportunity came knocking. After serving as Michigan’s

head coach for 12 years and leading the Wolverines to an impressive 198-54 record, DiGiovanni retired in 1997. The team’s rising seniors asked Paul to fill the void

the guys came in and they understood, although we are relatively young as a program, this university — this athletic department — has been around for so long and has had

“I know they wanted to win, but there’s a big price to pay to do that, especially at the club level where you’re paying to play and there aren’t those expectations

you go play for a couple hours and then roll out a keg onto the field after. It was treated very seriously, very much like a varsity sport. If you did not abide by the team rules and whatnot,

FILE PHOTO/Daily

In his 20 years as its coach, John Paul laid the foundation for the Michigan lacrosse program which is celebrating its 10th season this year.

for the upcoming 1998 season. Paul had some coaching experience, but not a ton. Back in 1990, Pioneer finally added a lacrosse program, six years after Paul’s original plea, and appointed DiGiovanni to the helm while he kept his post at Michigan. Helping his coach out, Paul acted as the Pioneers’ junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach when he was still playing for the Wolverines. His involvement had waned since he graduated from Michigan, though. Cautiously, Paul agreed to the seniors’ request under the assumption that his affiliation with the position would be temporary and part time. A year later, Paul found himself quitting his office job in LSA to become the Wolverines’ full-time head coach. “I just had such a great time doing it and I had this vision for making it more and more,” Paul said. “I just wanted to make the club program as good as it could be. So it came to a point where I was devoting so much time to that, my regular work was suffering and I had to make a choice. And I just liked (coaching) more.” As it did for him as a player, Michigan lacrosse — the brotherhood, the endless grind, the experience and camaraderie of it all — had captured his heart as a coach. And it wouldn’t let go for quite some time. *** As it turned out, Paul was the perfect person to take the reins from DiGiovanni. For Paul, growing up in Ann Arbor and surrounded by the University gave him an utmost reverence for the Block “M” and the values of hard work, determination and enthusiasm that he felt it represented. His desire to showcase Michigan in its purest form culminated in a rich intensity and passion that he brought to the program from the get-go. And in terms of building a strong team culture, Paul made sure that a similar mindset manifested itself in his players, his staff and even his eventual successor. “I think when you have someone who’s lived it their entire life like coach Paul, he understood what Michigan was,” current Wolverines’ head coach Kevin Conry said. “It was ingrained in our program, so that

so many legends come through it.” Upon taking the head coaching role, everything Paul had — money, time and energy — went towards Michigan club lacrosse. He never took a paycheck, even forgoing the proceeds from a youth lacrosse camp he ran every summer, instead putting all of his meager club sports coach earnings back into the team. This was not without sacrifice, not only for Paul, but also for Lisa, whose income the newlywed couple was solely relying on to get by. On the lacrosse field, such immense commitment paid off. From 1998 to 2006, he led the Wolverines to a compelling 152-37 record. Michigan was among the best teams in the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association, the highest division of collegiate club lacrosse, making its way to the MCLA Tournaments quarterfinals eight of the nine seasons and advancing as far as the semifinals in 2005. In 2007, though, the fourth-seeded Wolverines suffered a major upset when they were blown out by No. 13 seed Northeastern in the first round of the MCLA Tournament, 15-4. The loss shocked Paul and his players’ systems. “We had never lost in the first round,” Paul said. But after nearly a decade of gliding at an above-average — yet not quite championship-caliber — level of play, the loss offered a silver lining. It allowed Michigan to step back, evaluate its progress as a program thus far and understand what it would take to climb the next rung on the ladder to excellence. “We were at this crossroads,” Paul said. “We had always been this team that was highly ranked but never got it done. When you’re doing that year after year after year, that’s culture. And so we knew we kinda had to blow everything up and completely rethink the culture if we were gonna make the next step.” That offseason, Paul met with the rising seniors to discuss the future trajectory of the program. He had plans to make some big changes, mostly elevating the level of intensity and overall commitment, but he was worried that his ambitions did not match his players.

and accountability,” Paul said. ButtheseniorsacceptedPaul’schallenge. In that moment, they bought in and set forth to change course. “We were building it to be the best club program ever,” Paul said. “That’s what we wanted to be.” *** While it may seem frivolous for a coach and group of players to declare that they are suddenly going to rise to the top of the ranks of their sport, that sort of confidence made all the difference for incoming freshmen like Trevor Yealy prior to the 2008 season. Although Yealy’s decision to attend Michigan was primarily driven by his interest in the University’s aeronautical engineering program, as someone who was deciding whether to play Division I or club lacrosse in college, he was drawn to the fact that the Wolverines took themselves seriously despite being a club team. “I think it was those guys kinda setting the tone on how this program was going to be run and how, from a player perspective, we were going to conduct ourselves,” Yealy said. “(Those guys took) a step forward so that when my class (got) to Ann Arbor freshman year, we got a group of seniors who fully bought in and committed and had gotten the kids who were already there, the sophomores and juniors, fully bought in and committed. “I didn’t really know any other way at Michigan aside from being fully bought in and committed to the vision of being an excellent program, because those seniors set that foundation.” A new standard had been codified. In order to elevate its game, Michigan trained as if it were a varsity program, holding early morning lifting sessions and night practices four days a week in preparation for games on weekends. With a $1 million annual budget, a benefit of additional sponsorships and donations the Wolverines had recently received, they were fortunate enough to have the financial bandwidth to do so. “As a club team we practiced with incredible tempo,” Paul said. “I mean, our practices were brutal.” Added Yealy: “This was not your traditional club sport, where maybe

that was it, you were off the team.” To get some coaching help, Paul brought in Ken Broschart — an old friend who had previously run a successful club program of his own at Arizona. According to Paul, as a gritty blue-collar Long Islander, Broschart brought a unique blend of toughness and lacrosse intelligence that added positive value to the team, as well as Paul’s own coaching abilities. Michigan reaped the benefits of its metamorphosis immediately. In 2008, the Wolverines went undefeated in the regular season, something no other MCLA team had ever done before. Entering as the No. 1 seed in the MCLA Tournament, Michigan tore through its opponents in the early rounds before defeating No. 2 Chapman in the championship game, 14-11, to secure its first MCLA title. The Wolverines continued their reign into 2009 and 2010, notching a cumulative 38-1 record over that stretch en route to their second- and third-straight titles. What Michigan accomplished over such a brief period was nothing short of history. For the majority of these three years, the Wolverines sat untouched at No. 1 in the MCLA rankings. Spanning from the end of the 2007 season to the midpoint of 2010, the Wolverines won 50 consecutive games. Just as Paul and his seniors had set out to do in the summer of 2007, Michigan had quickly become one of the best club programs ever, and it showed little signs of wavering anytime soon. Division I coaches glanced at the Wolverines and were utterly impressed with what Paul had built, while club coaches desperately tried to figure out how to emulate it. For players like Yealy, who were now wrapping up their junior years, winning was the norm. It appeared, once again, as if Paul was content. “I never really had longterm goals for the program,” Paul said. “When we were changing the culture of the club program, it wasn’t necessarily about winning national championships. It certainly wasn’t about becoming varsity. It was just about being really excellent and trying to fig-

ure out how to do that better the next day than we did that day. That was it.” But then, once again, an opportunity came knocking. *** While Paul had certainly dreamed and talked of his program one day turning Division I, it was never a priority for him. He knew the answer would always be no. “I knew (then-Michigan athletic director) Bill Martin pretty well, and I didn’t bug him about wanting to be varsity, because I knew what he’d say and I didn’t want to lose his support for what we were doing,” Paul said. “I knew bugging him about varsity would just piss him off, so I didn’t. I thought we’d never be varsity.” Added Yealy: “Previous athletic directors had no interest. Rightfully so, big football, basketball, hockey school, they (had) their time plenty spent dealing with those sports, so adding lacrosse probably wasn’t high on their radar.” As a result, Paul just focused on building the best possible club team that he could, so in the event that, one day, should his circumstances change, he was ready. That day had come. On Jan. 5, 2010, then-Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman announced that Dave Brandon would serve as the University’s next athletic director following the retirement of Martin, who had served in the role for the previous 10 years. As the former CEO of Domino’s and a Wolverines’ football alum, Brandon came to the Michigan athletic department with an entrepreneurial spirit and sense of school pride that propelled him throughout his tenure from 2010 to 2014. Paul thought it was worth a shot to send a proposal to the athletic department detailing why Michigan club lacrosse should be promoted to varsity status. If anyone was going to take a chance on a new, exciting opportunity, it was Brandon. Fortunately for Paul, the stars were aligned in his favor. At the time, lacrosse was the fastest growing sport in the country, so investing in a Division I program would ensure that an athletic powerhouse like Michigan was a part of the latest and greatest wave in sports. Paul’s squad had also clearly proven itself to be the best club program in the country at the time, so it made sense for the Wolverines to want to take the next step at the varsity level. Paul was still surprised, though, when Brandon responded positively to the proposal. “He was like, ‘I already know I want to do this, I just don’t know if I can,’ ” Paul said. “He needed a few months to figure it out and then came back to me and said, ‘If we can get over all the hurdles that the University is going to put in front of us, we’re gonna do this.’ ” To make Paul’s vision a reality, he and Brandon would have to fundraise $5 million. The quantity of money was merely symbolic; $5 million doesn’t go very far for a modern Big Ten athletic program in terms of scholarships, facilities and equipment, but University officials wanted to see some commitment and have some cushion before approving the promotion. While Brandon and the athletic department primarily handled the accounting and logistics behind fundraising, Paul sold the idea. Not only did he have experience working with donors from his old work in the athletic department and LSA, he was also still quite close with club alumni, who he knew would be interested in contributing.

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